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For some reason, the ACC doesn’t seem terribly concerned about travel distance

The schedule is nice and everything, and y’know, FOOTBALL and whatnot, but how much of it is actually practical?

By Steven Muma
The United States Navy nuclear submarine USS Alexandria sits at ice level near its intended target
Pictured: An ACC team submarine arrives on Syracuse’s campus.
Photo by Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

It’s exciting simply to finally have a football schedule to talk about—I can’t help but feel a little amped out of sheer reflex—but I was surprised to see how audacious it is in scope. While we knew a schedule with fewer games was certain, I also expected ACC officials to more practically build these slates with travel in mind.

Instead, the ACC built the schedule like a beta test in an otherwise normal year, with no consideration whatsoever for clustering schools regionally. It is an optimistic choice, to be kind, and one made as though there aren’t hordes of anti-mask dipshits burning the country down from the inside one trip to Applebee’s at a time.

Notre Dame is taking on a full ACC schedule. North Carolina has been tasked with road trips to both Boston College and Miami. Pittsburgh has trips to FSU and Miami. Clemson plays only one NC-based school (Wake Forest). Georgia Tech is going to BC and Syracuse. And on and on.

The whole thing feels entirely incongruous with the ACC’s policy that non-conference games must be played in each league school’s home state. That policy conveniently makes room for the SEC-ACC rivalry games already on the docket, but implies an awareness of the risk of traveling at all—which seemingly hasn’t been a factor in any other decision.

I imagine the ACC would argue that travel within the league is safer because the league will have a uniform set of safety guidelines established for the fall, from a testing regimen to how many players, coaches, and support staff are allowed to go on road trips. I’d be dubious on the premise, though.

Or maybe the idea here is just to give us rubes something to blabber about while Swoff and the boys at the home office laugh themselves into hysterics at the sheer implausibility of what they have put forth, knowing full well it can never come to fruition. In which case, fair. We’ll still probably end up doing like 10 posts breaking down the schedule. Hey, I said I can’t help it.

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