UNC Football: Seven-Year ACC Schedule Model Released

Today, we learned what the next seven years of conference play will look like for the UNC Football program as the ACC Transitions to a 17-team conference.

As the college football landscape changes what feels like daily with conference realignment, so do future football schedules. The Atlantic Coast Conference announced its new seven-year model for the now 17-member conference, including SMU, California, and Stanford. How do the schedules line up for the UNC Football program during that time span?

North Carolina is one of three conference schools with three protected matchups under this new model. The three schools that the Tar Heels will face every year between 2024 and 2030 will be Duke, NC State, and Virginia.

The Tar Heels won’t face one of the new member schools until 2025 when they will host Stanford and travel to California. There won’t be a matchup with SMU until 2028!

Outside the protected matchups with the Blue Devils, Wolfpack, and Cavaliers, the next most common opponents over the seven-year model include four matchups with Clemson and Wake Forest. While North Carolina will see the new members of Cal and Stanford just three times and SMU twice. Tar Heels will travel to the Golden Bears for two of the three matchups while having the Cardinal visit Chapel Hill for two of three. The SMU two-game series will be a home and home.

Along with SMU, other schools that the Tar Heels will only face two times over the next seven years will be Boston College, Georgia Tech (thankfully, the next trip to Atlanta isn’t until 2027), Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse.

The new model will follow the most recent change made last off-season, which eliminated divisions from the conference. The 17 teams will play an eight-game conference schedule, with the top two teams advancing to play for the ACC Championship based on conference winning percentage.

Of course, with the world of conference realignment, no one knows how long this current schedule model will last. Just four months ago, the ACC unveiled the four-year 3-5-5 schedule model that didn’t even get through the first week of the 2023 season before adding new conference members.

What do you think of the UNC Football portion of the new ACC Schedule?

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