One upshot of the ACC’s expansion and the league’s decision to remain at eight regular-season football games was laid out in full Tuesday — Georgia Tech won’t visit Florida State until 2022.
That was one small particular of the league’s release of its schedule for each team’s crossover partners through 2024. With the new 14-team alignment and eight league games, teams will play six games within their division, three at home and three on the road. Another will be against their primary crossover partners (Tech’s will remain Clemson) and the eighth against a rotation of the other teams in the opposite division.
Tech’s 12-year cycle begins this season with its home game against Syracuse on Oct. 19. Teams previously played three games against the opposite division each season — one against the primary partner and two against a rotation of the remaining schools. Coastal Division teams played every Atlantic Division team, other than their primary opponent, twice every five years. Now, they’ll play twice every 12 years.
For Tech fans, it means fewer opportunities to see the six teams in the Atlantic Division besides Clemson — Boston College, Florida State, N.C. State and Wake Forest, along with newcomer Syracuse and Louisville, which will join in 2014 and effectively replace Maryland. Notre Dame will join for the 2013-14 academic year in all sports but football and ice hockey.
The ACC also presented the scheduling format’s framework. Each team will play four home and four road games each season. When a team plays its primary crossover partner on the road, it will play its rotating crossover opponent at home, and vice versa. All the teams in each division will play their primary partner at home one year and on the road the next. In the 12-year cycle, the games against the crossover opponent will not be in consecutive years.
In February 2012, the ACC moved to a nine-game schedule in order to accommodate the expanded league and keep three crossover games. However, the ACC reverted to eight games in October when Notre Dame, in joining the conference for all sports but football and ice hockey, agreed to play five games annually against ACC members. Coaches, including Tech’s Paul Johnson, had been opposed to a nine-game league schedule. For Tech, that would potentially have meant a schedule with nine league games, plus Georgia and Notre Dame.
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