Who Should Be Syracuse's Permanent Opponents in Potential Change to ACC Football Scheduling?
The ACC is considering revamping its football scheduling and eliminating divisions. This would be a welcomed change and allow teams in the conference to play each other more often. One model that is being discussed is a 3-5-5 model. That means each team gets three permanent opponents that they play every season. The rest of the teams are divided into two groups of five that would rotate every other year.
Each team would play everyone in the ACC every two years and host each team every four. That seems like a logical, easily doable plan that would work better than the current divisional model.
In that scenario of the 3-5-5 model being implemented, and potentially in place as early as the 2023 season, who should Syracuse have as its permanent opponents?
Two teams are obvious. Boston College and Pittsburgh. They have history going back to the Big East. They play every year now. They are all in the Northeast. It is a slam dunk for those two to be among Syracuse's permanent opponents. The third, however, is not so obvious.
Here are a few options that make some sense.
Virginia Tech: The Hokies have history with Syracuse from the Big East days similar to BC and Pitt. There is not much ACC related history, however, as they have been in different divisions. They are closer than many other schools in the conference as well.
Clemson: The two teams have had some memorable matchups since the Orange joined the ACC, specifically in the Dino Babers era. The upset in 2017 and the near upset in 2018 as two examples. Perhaps the ACC would like to continue that budding rivalry.
Miami: Similar to Virginia Tech, there is history dating back to the Big East. Syracuse also has alumni in Florida, which could help drive up interest in this matchup each year.
Louisville: As with Virginia Tech and Miami, there is history dating back to the Big East (though not as long). There is also recent history since both have been in the ACC as they have been in the same division.
Wake Forest: A dark horse option, Syracuse and Wake Forest have had some very close, tightly contested games as ACC foes. It would be fun to keep that going. What may make this unlikely is the ACC could elect to have the North Carolina based teams (UNC, Wake, NC State, Duke) all play each other each season.
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