The New ACC Schedule Is Stupid
It’s not that it’s new...it’s just that it’s getting old.
We have a lot of thoughts about the new ACC conference basketball schedule, but for one example, for the first time since 1919, UNC and NC State will not play home-and-home.
But that’s not the only stupidity.
UNC plays Duke home-and-home, has Wake at home and NC State in Raleigh.
Wake Forest plays home-and-home with NC State, but only plays at Duke and at UNC.
In his first season, Will Wade gets Duke, UNC and Wake at home (and on the road), and gets Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pitt and SMU on the road. ‘
In his first season, Miami’s Jai Lucas gets home-and-homes with Florida State and BC, and gets Louisville and UNC at home - but no Duke.
At Florida State, first-year coach Luke Loucks gets Miami and SMU for the home-and-homes, then Duke, NC State and Wake Forest at home.
And finally in his first season, Ryan Odom will get Virginia Tech and Wake Forest for home-and-homes, then BC, Cal, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Stanford at home.
We’re going to go out on a limb here and say that Ryan Odom is an early frontrunner for next season’s ACC Coach of the Year.
Having just two home-and-home games is pathetic, but fixable: UNC and NC State should schedule each other for non-conference games, as should Duke and NC State and a few others as well.
And if we’re going to just not play one team in the regular season and there’s no round robin for all, maybe it’s time to consider two possibilities: division or relegation.
Divisions are pretty straightforward: cut the conference into either two or three divisions and let them play home-and-homes.
Let’s suppose that the imaginatively named Division 1 is made up of:
- Duke
- UNC
- NC State
- Wake Forest
- Virginia
- Virginia Tech
- Clemson
- Georgia Tech
- Notre Dame
The equally imaginatively named Division 2 would house:
- Miami
- Florida State
- Louisville
- Boston College
- Pitt
- Syracuse
- SMU
- Cal
- Stanford
Those are our choices but we know that other arrangements might make more sense geographically and for travel. Whatever. At least everyone would have a decent home-and-home schedule and you could schedule some one-offs with teams from the opposing division.
Alternatively, you could do British-style relegation, which would be tricky but manageable.
You’d have to design a schedule that would allow for some switching of teams and dates and the like, but that’s for better minds (or AI) than ours.
You’d have two divisions again and our suggestion would be to have the coaches vote on who would be in which division, but unable to vote for their own teams.
Obviously you can’t know if that’s going to work out correctly, but our suggestion is that just before conference play starts, you revote the divisions which is why you’d want to have the schedules as plug-and-play as possible so that you could move teams around.
In this past season, it seems obvious that Virginia, Miami and NC State would have moved down while SMU might have moved up.
In this environment, the better teams would play each other and build more tournament credibility. You’d maintain the basic ACC tournament structure, which would give the bottom schools a chance to play their way in.
Primary Partners for 2025-26 Season:
- Boston College-Notre Dame
- Clemson-Georgia Tech
- California-Stanford
- Duke-North Carolina
- Florida State-Miami
- Louisville-SM
- UNC State-Wake Forest
- Pitt-Syracuse
- Virginia Tech-Virginia
Variable Partners for 2025-26 Season:
- Boston College-Miami
- California-Georgia Tech
- Clemson-Pitt
- Duke-Louisville
- Florida State-SMU
- North Carolina-Syracuse
- NC State-Virginia
- Notre Dame-Stanford
- Virginia Tech-Wake Forest