Highlights, and lowlights, of the 2018 ACC football schedule to ponder as you pass the days until the season kicks off:
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Remember me?
Hey, Virginia and N.C. State really are in the same conference. So are Duke and Clemson. Amazing.
The ACC killed off some its original matchups when it expanded in 2004. It only got worse in 2013 when it grew to 14 teams.
But every eight years, some of the old foes get together again, like a family reunion. The Wahoos and Wolfpack meet up for the first time since 2012. That’s also the last time the Blue Devils and Tigers played.
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Pleased to meet you
Five years after it joined the league, Syracuse will face North Carolina on the football field.
Louisville joined the ACC in 2014 and is just now getting around to meeting Georgia Tech.
These are problems the ACC could fix with a rotation schedule but that’s not going to happen any time soon.
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Check out anytime you want …
… but you can never leave, Jimbo Fisher. Mr. Big Bucks is making it rain at Texas A&M, to the tune of $7.5 million a year, but he couldn’t get away from Clemson.
Dabo Swinney will bring his fully-loaded Clemson squad to College Station on Sept. 8 for an ACC-SEC showdown.
Swinney has won the last three matchups with Fisher.
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What about Notre Dame?
The ACC will let the Fighting Irish sample their milk again, without paying for it. Pitt and Florida State travel to South Bend, Ind. while Wake Forest and Virginia Tech get home dates with NBC’s team.
Syracuse gets the luxury of “hosting” Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 17, which is unlikely to be thawed out by then.
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Tread lightly
West Virginia is the “Power 5” opponent on N.C. State’s nonconference schedule but that opener with James Madison could get sticky.
The Dukes won the 2016 FCS title and finished as the runner-up in 2017.
A trip to Toledo, 20-7 the past two years, for Miami won’t be a picnic, either.
UNC has three tough nonconference games — at Cal, at East Carolina and at home with UCF — to open the season.
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Ready for primetime
Wake Forest is featured in half of the four Thursday night games. The Deacs host Boston College on Sept. 13 and go to N.C. State on Nov. 8.
UNC at Miami (Sept. 27) and Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech (Oct. 25) are the other two Thursday night games.
There are five Friday night games on the schedule: Georgia Tech at Louisville (Oct. 5), Miami at Boston College (Oct. 26), Pitt at Virginia (Nov. 2), Louisville at Syracuse (Nov. 9) and Virginia at Virginia Tech (Nov. 23).
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Yes, please
Miami’s nonconference schedule features a neutral-site opener with LSU (Sept. 2) and reunion with Butch Davis (Sept. 22), who is in his second season at Florida International.
Even Miami’s crossover games, Florida State and Boston College, should be fun. Much will be expected of Mark Richt’s third team after winning its first division title in 2017.
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Hard pass
Somewhere Mike London weeps. When he was Virginia’s coach, the Cavaliers routinely played the most difficult nonconference schedule.
Bronco Mendenhall has had some tough games his first two years but this year’s slate out of the ACC — Richmond, Indiana, Ohio and Liberty — is the definition of “blah.”
Pitt, by the way, has the “My Athletic Director Hates Me” special in 2018 with an arduous run against Penn State, Central Florida and Notre Dame. Those three teams went a combined 34-5 last season.
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