The ACC released the 2026-27 conference opponents on Thursday, and the first thing you realize is this: the unbalanced schedule sucks, has always sucked, and always will suck.
One way you can tell is this: we understand that this is the first time ever that neither Duke nor UNC will play NC State in Raleigh. That’s just wrong. State and UNC didn’t play in Raleigh in 1947, but Duke did. Toss out 1947 and this apparently goes back to 1910. What a shame.
We’re not going to look at every team’s draw, but we will look at a few that are expected to excel.
We’ll start with Duke, and with this caveat: the Blue Devils have dominated the league in recent years, but no one should want Duke to treat the ACC like Gonzaga treated the WCC for decades. We want a highly competitive league.
That said, the ACC gave Duke a tough road. Obviously, the Duke-UNC rivalry is going to be a staple, but with Virginia being home-and-home too, that’s four very tough games.
Duke will also go to BC, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest. However, there are also road games at Syracuse and Louisville. That’s a lot of tough games for the Blue Devils.
Compare that to what UNC got.
Again, Duke and UNC is a powerful rivalry and makes a lot of money, and a home-and-home with Louisville won’t be easy. But UNC gets Miami, SMU and Virginia at home, and the road games are at BC, Florida State, Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest. From May, that’s a much easier path than what Duke’s looks like, but of course, it may look quite different in February.
Louisville’s home-and home games are with UNC and SMU. The Cardinals get Clemson, Duke and Miami at home. They have tough road games at Syracuse and Virginia, but the rest looks favorable.
Miami’s home-and-home partners are Florida State and Pitt, and we’d tend to favor the ‘Canes in all of those. Jai Lucas gets Clemson, SMU, and Virginia at home, and road games at Duke, Louisville, and UNC.
Syracuse is rebuilding, but the Orange get home games with Duke, Louisville, UNC, and Virginia. None of those games will be easy, but they’ll all be at home. Nice break.
Finally, Virginia.
UVa’s home-and-home games are Virginia Tech and Duke. They get Louisville at home too, but road games at Clemson, Miami, UNC, and Syracuse. That won’t be easy.
Look, every year, some fan base is going to whine they got screwed. That’s not really the point. And as we said at the beginning, we should all want a highly competitive ACC.
The criticism is for the unbalanced schedule in the first place. There is really no choice, of course. With 18 teams, there’s no way to have a round robin. You’d like to think there is a better way to do things, perhaps some variation of relegation, where the projected top 6 or 7 teams have a round robin and the rest fight it out for what’s left.
That won’t work either, though. We’re just stuck with this mess for the foreseeable future, and it sucks.
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