ACC announces new football scheduling model
The change to the ACC’s football scheduling model is now official.
After being discussed at length among conference leaders, athletic directors and coaches during the league’s spring meetings last month, the ACC announced Tuesday it is moving a new format that is doing away with divisions.
As expected, the league will go to a 3-5-5 scheduling model beginning in 2023 that will see each team play three permanent conference opponents while rotating five of the other 10 teams onto the schedule every other year. Clemson’s permanent opponents will be Florida State and North Carolina State as well as Georgia Tech, which is already the Tigers’ permanent cross-division opponent.
“The future ACC football scheduling model provides significant enhancements for our schools and conference, with the most important being our student-athletes having the opportunity to play every school both home and away over a four-year period,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement. “We appreciate the thoughtful discussions within our membership, including the head football coaches and athletic directors. In the end, it was clear this model is in the best interest of our student-athletes, programs and fans, at this time.”
With divisions scrapped, the teams with the best two conference winning percentages will play for the league championship under the new format, a change to the current format that was made possible after the NCAA recently lifted regulations that previously restricted conferences’ autonomy in determining its championship game participants. Division winners currently meet in the championship game in Charlotte every December, a format that’s been in place since 2005.
Clemson’s conference schedules for the next four years are as follows:
Home: FSU, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Wake Forest
Away: Duke, Miami, N.C. State, Syracuse
Home: Louisville, Miami, N.C. State, Virginia
Away: Boston College, FSU, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech
Home: Duke, FSU, Georgia Tech, Syracuse
Away: North Carolina, N.C. State, Pitt, Wake Forest
Home: Boston College, N.C. State, Pitt, Virginia Tech
Away: FSU, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Virginia
