On Friday, we previewed what a potential fall schedule could look like for NC State Wolfpack football if the ACC went to a conference-only, 10-game slate. That theoretical was built around existing schedules and adding two more league games to the eight already booked, using a preference towards keeping the games as regional as possible in the wide geographic footprint of the ACC.
Also on Friday, the well-sourced local sports radio host Joe Giglio, formerly of the News and Observer and now with WRAL and 99.9 The Fan, floated a model that is on the table:
The premise is that you’d have eight group games a couple of crossover contests. How could such a deal work? Mathematically, only the 14 full-time ACC teams could get five home-and-homes. That’d leave Notre Dame with four.
With that mind, we take a shot at it, again using a preference for proximity:
• Obviously, the four in-state programs of NC State, Duke, North Carolina and Wake Forest would like to play each other, and given the proximity it makes sense.
• Other close proximity contests that are no-brainers are Virginia-Virginia Tech, Wake Forest-Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech-Clemson.
• All of those games listed above are a max, with good traffic, about two hours drive from each other. The Virginia and N.C.-based schools have the advantage of being able to all reach each other on a bus ride, given the economic constraints that will be facing athletic departments (Florida State announced a 20 percent reduction in its budget on Friday) would be preferable.
If you consider about five hours the max you could do a bus ride, others that could be squeezed in include Pittsburgh-Virginia Tech, Louisville-Notre Dame, Syracuse-Boston College, Virginia Tech-Clemson and Florida State-Georgia Tech. Also, Clemson could make it to all the North Carolina-based schools in that amount of time.
• Miami and Florida State are over six hours apart from each other, but given the rivalry, they are a natural fit.
• The reality after that is that you are going to have to mix-and-match some to make the idea work. For instance, it is very difficult to make a schedule that’s fair and allows all four of the North Carolina-based programs to play each other. This is why, once again, Duke and NC State would not play each other in our schedule.
Ultimately, each team is going to have to make at least one long trip if not two.
Here’s our best try:
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