With the end of July rapidly approaching, the ACC has a bit of a de facto deadline to come up with a schedule for the 2020 season. In the college sports landscape of COVID-19, The clock is ticking on ACC football.
After the Big Ten and Pac-12 elected to go with conference-only schedules for the 2020 season, expectation grew that the ACC would follow suit. However, those initial reports were quickly corrected; the league wanted to keep its options open. From the jump, ACC Commissioner John Swofford also made clear that Notre Dame will be involved in the process, too.
According to a report from Stadium’s Brett McMurphy, the league’s top scheduling model for 2020 looks like such: 11 total games. Of that 11-game schedule, 10 games would be conference games — perhaps in a pod-like format. The 11th game, however, would allow teams to maintain SEC non-conference match-ups, like Georgia Tech-Georgia and Clemson-South Carolina.
Earlier this week: Gary Stokan, CEO and President of Peach Bowl, Inc., said all three of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games remain as scheduled for early September. Three ACC teams — Florida State (West Virginia), Virginia (Georgia) and North Carolina (Auburn) — are set to play in those games. Under this proposed model, it would seem as though this game would satisfy each team’s lone out-of-conference contest.
In this scenario, as part of Notre Dame’s inclusion, the Irish would play 10 games against ACC programs — with wins and losses counting in league standings.
ACC’s top scheduling model is 10 league games plus 1 nonconference foe, sources told @Stadium. In this format if Notre Dame plays 10 ACC teams, results would count in ACC standings, sources said. Unknown if ND could earn ACC’s Orange Bowl bid. This needs ACC presidential approval
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 24, 2020
As McMurphy notes on Twitter, nothing is final; this measure, which is just one possibility, would require approval from ACC presidents.