039: 🏈 Ditching Divisions
A look ahead at the 2023 ACC football schedule without divisions.
Clemson opens the 2023 season at Duke on September 4. The last time the Tigers played at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham was in 2012.
Clemsoning was still a thing.
NC State travels to Charlottesville to play Virginia on September 22. It marks just the third trip the Wolfpack has made to Charlottesville since 2011. Oh, the Wolfpack’s quarterback is UVA’s all-time passing leader too. NC State has played Maryland more times (12) than the Wahoos (7) over the past 20 seasons.
Virginia plays at Boston College on September 30. The Cavaliers haven’t played in Chestnut Hill since 2010.
Florida State and Virginia Tech play in Tallahassee on October 7. The Seminoles and the Hokies have played each other only seven times since the two met in the 2000 National Championship.
Wake Forest visits Virginia Tech on October 14. The Demon Deacons have played at Lane Stadium just twice since the Hokies joined the league in 2004.
North Carolina plays down in Death Valley on November 18. The first trip to Clemson since 2014 for the Tar Heels.
You get the idea.
The ACC is abandoning divisions this fall. The goal is to create a more competitive regular season and conference championship game.
It means the league schedule is dramatically different than in seasons past. Similar to the basketball schedule, the football schedule is not equitable. 14 teams, plus Notre Dame, creates radically different strengths of schedule when you play only eight league games.
Take a look at projections from:
Clemson, and Florida State, own the best odds to advance to the conference championship game. Bill Connelly’s SP+ ratings project Florida State at 6.3 wins in conference play and Clemson at 6.2. The two teams play in Death Valley on September 23.
Outside of the top two, most projections are consistent that there are four teams at the bottom of the league. Boston College, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Virginia are all projected to win fewer than three conference games.
This leaves eight teams in the messy middle. There is a fine line between a 3-5 record and 5-3 record in conference play.
Louisville has the third best odds to win the league per FanDuel. A new coach, new quarterback, and avoiding Clemson, Florida State, and North Carolina on the schedule explains why.
Not only do the Cardinals avoid the top teams in the league, Louisville plays all four of the teams at the bottom of league and three of those games are at home. The away game at Georgia Tech is played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, so more like a semi-home game for the Cardinals. The vibes are strong.
The average projected win total of Louisville’s conference opponents (5.7) is the lowest across the ACC.
# average opponent pre-season win totals
team_name opp_avg_win_total
1 Duke 7.3
2 Clemson 7.0
3 Miami 7.0
4 Pittsburgh 7.0
5 Georgia Tech 6.9
6 Syracuse 6.9
7 Wake Forest 6.9
8 NC State 6.8
9 Florida State 6.6
10 Virginia Tech 6.6
11 Virginia 6.5
12 Boston College 6.4
13 North Carolina 6.4
14 Louisville 5.7 It’s the opposite for Duke. The Blue Devils play Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, and Louisville. The average win total of its conference opponents (7.3) is the highest across the league.
By the time Miami plays a conference opponent, Clemson might already be 3-0 in conference play. The Hurricanes do not play a league game until week 6 or October 7. Miami plays its entire league schedule over the final eight weeks of the season.
The ACC didn’t use divisions in 2020. It resulted in a 9-0 Notre Dame and 8-1 Clemson meeting in the conference championship game. It’s hard to put a lot of stock into that season for obvious reasons.
A league without divisions feels like a better format. There is more schedule diversity, but does that mean it will result in a better league?
It might bring a more competitive conference championship game. The league hopes it does because the last six conference title games have been decided by an average of 31.5 points.
A possible Florida State and Clemson rematch in Charlotte sounds intriguing or at least more competitive than past conference championship games.
A better format doesn’t guarantee a better league, but maybe a more interesting one? Imagine a two-team or three-team tie would bring lots of laughs when you dive into the tiebreaker rules.
You can take away the Coastal Division, but can you take away the chaos?
If you’re looking for a way to compare schedules and projected opponent win totals in college football, check out this app. It’s a quick way to get an idea of a team’s pre-season expectations.
Thank you for reading, please consider subscribing below if you found this useful. And please find the the code to generate the tables in this post.