Who’s in the ACC? Explaining conference realignment, new schedules and more

The 2024 college football season is fully underway as of today! It is the most wonderful time of the year when it comes to the greatest sport in the world. While the advent of the recently expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, leagues like the ACC are essentially guaranteed at least one spot into the revamped postseason tournament. However, the ACC may only be getting in one team this year.

This is because even with the ACC being grouped into the automatic qualifier bucket, the other Power Four leagues (yes, that is what it is now) all added more intriguing assets. The ACC was able to pick up two schools in the demise of the Pac-12, as well as one team looking to move up from the Group of Five over in the Southwest. So we have a 17-team league that doesn't include Notre Dame.

What I am going to do today is outline all the major changes that have happened to the ACC over the offseason. Whether it be what teams joined the league, what head coaching changes occurred or what alterations there have been to the schedule in an expanded league, I have you covered. So let's dive into this a bit. Surely, you will learn as much reading this as I did putting this together for you.

Let's start with the current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. There are now 17 of them...

Current ACC membership

Here is a table of every school in the ACC, what year they joined the league and their home stadium.

Notre Dame has been a member in pretty much all other sports since 2013, but still continues to operate as a national independent in football, except for during COVID seasons. They will be ACC.

New ACC members

The ACC has gradually expanded since it was founded in 1953. The original founding members of the ACC were Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina and Wake Forest, all of whom had been members of the Southern Conference. Virginia was later added a few months later with the original founding members' desire to have an eighth team to join their league.

South Carolina would become the first program to leave by becoming an independent in 1971. National independent Georgia Tech would become a full-time member in 1979 to make it an eight-team league once again. Florida State would join the league in 1991 as the ninth member after having competed as a national independent in football throughout its history. Then came the 21st century...

The ACC expanded from a nine-team league to a 12-team one over the course of 2004 and 2005. In the demise of the Big East as a football power, the league gained Miami and Virginia Tech in 2004, followed by Boston College in 2005. The next wave of realignment came in 2013 with the additions of Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame in everything but football. Maryland would leave for the Big Ten.

In the wake of Maryland going to the Big Ten in 2014, Louisville would join the league to make 14 teams in football again after a brief pitstop in the AAC after having come to to relevance in the old Big East and Conference USA previously. Then with the death of the Pac-12, Cal and Stanford joined the league in 2024. They were also joined this past offseason by SMU out of the AAC to make it 17 teams.

Former ACC members

To date, the only two schools to leave the ACC were South Carolina way back in 1971 and Maryland not all that long ago in 2014. South Carolina would go compete as a national independent in football through the 1970s and 1980s before joining the SEC alongside Arkansas in 1992. Maryland joined the Big Ten in 2014 alongside former Big East competitor Rutgers to make that a 14-team league.

ACC divisions

As of the 2023 college football season, the ACC has not competed in divisions. It used to have two seven-team divisions known as the Atlantic and the Coastal. The Atlantic typically had better high-end football, thanks to Clemson, Florida State and Louisville, while the Coastal was a complete crapshoot. At one point, all seven members won the division title over the course of seven seasons.

How the ACC schedule works

Scheduling rules

With the dissolution of divisions, the ACC did the smart thing by protecting a series of rivals for both the 2023 and 2024 college seasons. As with the SEC, the ACC will play an eight-game conference schedule for the foreseeable future. Eventually, both leagues could get to nine games. For the upcoming season with the additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU, here are the protected rivalries.

Upcoming ACC schedules

The ACC's schedule has been released for the 2024 season, obviously. You can check that out right here. It is pretty straight forward, despite it being a 17-team league with Notre Dame playing five games against ACC opponents annually forever going forward. If you want to really have some fun, take a look at this page of all the ACC teams' conference opponents through the 2030 NCAA season.

ACC Championship Game tiebreakers

Tie-breaking criteria in order

Shocking no one, the ACC tie-breaking procedures are a doozy. Let's break it down the best we can.

Two-team tie-breaking procedures

1. Head-to-head
2. Winning percentage vs. common opponents
3. Winning percentage vs. common opponents based upon order of finish, working our way through all common opponents based on order of finish
4. Combined winning percentage of all conference opponents
5. Higher ranking based on Team Rating Score from SportSource Analytics after all regular season games have been completed.
6. Commissioner conducts a random draw to decide a winner.

Three-or-more tie-breaking procedures

1. Combined head-to-head winning percentage among tied teams, should all teams have been common opponents
2. If all tied teams are not common opponents, the tied team that defeated all the other tied teams advances. (If all tied teams are not common opponents, but not tied team defeated all the other tied teams, but a tied team lost to all the other tied teams, they will be removed from the discussion.)
3. Winning percentage vs. common opponents
4. Winning percentage vs. common opponents based on order of finish, proceeding through all common opponents based on their order of finish)
5. Combined winning percentage of conference opponents
6. Highest ranking based on Team Rating Score from SportSource Analytics after all regular season games have been completed.
7. Commissioner conducts a random draw to decide a winner.

ACC head coaches

Here is a table of every ACC head coach, what team they lead and how long they have had this job.

New ACC head coaches

Entering the 2024 college football season, we have six new head coaches in the conference. Three are replacing former ACC coaches, while three others are coming over as a part of conference realignment. Rhett Lashlee, Troy Taylor and Justin Wilcox are coming over to the ACC as a part of conference realignment from SMU, Stanford and California, respectively. Now, let's do the other three.

Bill O'Brien replaced Jeff Hafley very late in the cycle. Hafley left Boston College to become the defensive coordinator for the NFL's Green Bay Packers. O'Brien had been the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots and the Alabama Crimson Tide recently. He had also been the head coach of the Houston Texans and the Penn State Nittany Lions throughout most of the 2010s.

Fran Brown replaced Dino Babers as the head coach at Syracuse after he was fired. He most recently was the defensive backs coach at Georgia. Brown had been a defensive backs coach throughout much of the last decade in college working at placed like Rutgers, Temple and Baylor, in addition to Georgia. He is from Camden, New Jersey, played at Western Carolina and for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Manny Diaz is back in the ACC after having served as James Franklin's defensive coordinator at Penn State after being ousted as the Miami Hurricanes head coach. He replaces Mike Elko, who went back to Texas A&M to replace his former boss Jimbo Fisher as the Aggies' next head coach. Diaz has been a defensive coordinator at universities like Miami, Mississippi State, Texas and several others before.

Former ACC head coaches

As stated above, Dino Babers, Mike Elko and Jeff Hafley are no longer ACC head coaches. Babers resurfaced as the offensive coordinator on Brent Brennan's first Arizona Wildcats staff. Elko took over for his former boss in Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M after a great two-year run leading Duke. Hafley replaced former Green Bay Pakers defensive coordinator Joe Barry over on Matt LaFleur's staff.

ACC in the rankings

Preseason AP poll

Here is a list of every ACC team that was ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 Poll:

• 10. Florida State Seminoles (971 votes)
• 14. Clemson Tigers (689 votes)
• 19. Miami Hurricanes (492 votes)
• 24. North Carolina State Wolfpack (171)

And here is a list of every ACC team that received at least one vote in the preseason AP Top 25 Poll:

• Louisville Cardinals (111 votes)
• Virginia Tech Hokies (77 votes)
• SMU Mustangs (33 votes)

Preseason coaches poll

Here is a list of every ACC team that was ranked inside the US LBM Coaches Poll:

• 10. Florida State Seminoles (867 points)
• 14. Clemson Tigers (657 points)
• 19. Miami Hurricanes (292 points)
• 22. North Carolina State Wolfpack (216 points)

And here is a list of every ACC team that received at least one vote in the US LBM Coaches Poll:

• Louisville Cardinals (95 points)
• Virginia Tech Hokies (64 points)
• SMU Mustangs (47 points)
• North Carolina Tar Heels (6 points)
• Syracuse Orange (1 point)

ACC media poll

Here is how the ACC media believes the league is going to shake out this college football season.

1. Florida State Seminoles (2,708 points, 81 first-place votes)
2. Clemson Tigers (2,657 points, 55 first-place votes)
3. Miami Hurricanes (2,344 points, 17 first-place votes)
4. North Carolina State Wolfpack (2,318 points, 8 first-place votes)
5. Louisville Cardinals (1,984 points)
6. Virginia Tech Hokies (1,968 points, 5 first-place votes)
7. SMU Mustangs (1,798 points)
8. North Carolina Tar Heels (1,712 points)
9. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (1,539 points, 1 first-place vote)
10. California Golden Bears (1,095 points, 2 first-place votes)
11. Duke Blue Devils (1,056 points)
12. Syracuse Orange (1,035 points)
13. Pittsburgh Panthers (1,016 points)
14. Boston College Eagles (890 points, 1 first-place votes)
15. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (784 points)
16. Virginia Cavaliers (629 points)
17. Stanford Cardinal (477 points)

Now that you know everything you need to know about the ACC this year, you have games to watch!