When the Atlantic Coast Conference elected to add Southern Methodist, California, and Stanford to the league beginning in 2024, it meant that scheduling would need to be reworked for future seasons. Officials announced what that will look like for the football programs on Monday night.
Each ACC school will continue to play 8 conference games each season. There will be no divisions as was the case this season. The top two teams based on conference winning percentage (or tiebreakers) will face off in the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte.
The league opted to protect 16 rivalry games as well. For Virginia, that means playing Virginia Tech and North Carolina each season. The other protected games were Boston College-Syracuse, Boston College-Pitt, Syracuse-Pitt, North Carolina-Duke, North Carolina-NC State, NC State-Wake Forest, NC State-Duke, Duke-Wake Forest, Florida State-Clemson, Miami-Florida State, Miami-Virginia Tech, Stanford-Cal, Stanford-SMU, and Cal-SMU. Beyond those guaranteed games, each school will play each other at least twice – once at home and once on the road – over the next seven seasons. The 14 schools already in the ACC will play three times each in California over the seven years and no school will travel west in back-to-back seasons.
The schedule outline leaves Virginia with a mix that breaks down like his:
- UNC and VT – 7 times
- Florida State and Wake Forest – 4 times
- Boston College, California, Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami SMU, Stanford, and Syracuse – 3 times
- Pittsburgh/NC State – 2 times
That’s a little less GT and a little more Wake thank from the previous division formats. It’s less Louisville with the permanent partnership label there now gone. It also sets up having two newcomers on the schedule in 3 of 7 years – 2025, 2026, and 2029.
For the Hoos, the future schedules look like this:
- 2024 – Home: BC, Louisville, SMU, UNC + Richmond, Maryland| Away: Wake, Clemson, Pitt, VT + Coastal Carolina, Notre Dame
- 2025 – Home: FSU, Stanford, Wake, VT + Coastal Carolina | Away: Cal, Duke, Louisville, UNC
- 2026 – Home: Cal, Duke, Cuse, UNC + Norfolk State | Away: FSU, SMU, Wake, VT + Notre Dame
- 2027 – Home: NCSU, Pitt, SMU, VT + Indiana| Away: BC, GT, Miami, UNC
- 2028 – Home: Clemson, GT, Miami, UNC + Richmond | Away: Duke, Stanford, Cuse, VT + Indiana
- 2029 – Home: FSU, Cuse, Wake, VT | Away: Clemson, NCSU, GT, UNC
- 2030 – Home: BC, Miami, Stanford, UNC | Away: Cal, FSU, Louisville, VT + Kansas
Obviously with the changing tides of conference realignment, long-term schedules are always subject to change. For now, however, the ACC has left Virginia with a manageable travel schedule in 2024 and only one long trip in 2025. It will be interesting to see if UVA makes any changes to non-conference dates with the new conference information now in place.
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Wow! The away schedule next year seems very daunting!
Don’t see why we play Coastal Carolina. What’s to gain there?