ACC Football: The 2017 Schedule is a Joke And an Embarrassment

The ACC released their football schedule for the 2017 season – and in typical fashion, the conference showed how little they care about the sport.

Congratulations, ACC and Commissioner John Swofford…you have done something that not many people thought would be done. You have gone out of your way to make sure that the Big 12 is no longer the worst Power Five football conference and instead made sure our 14 team league took that honor.

That may seem harsh to some people, but after seeing what the conference produced for their 2017 football schedule I think it might not be harsh enough. Even though the conference has produced two of the last four national champs – including defending champ Clemson – the composite schedule shows that the league couldn’t care less about football.

It starts with the idea of when the biggest conference game of the season is taking place. Without being totally biased, the two teams with a shot of making it to the College Football Playoff next season from the ACC are the Clemson Tigers and Florida State Seminoles?

So when do the geniuses in Greensboro schedule the game between the teams for? That’s right…November 11th. By playing it as the final conference game in the third to final regular season week, it has more than likely eliminated any chance of getting a second team into the CFB Playoff.

Second, the ACC – even with FSU and Clemson having recent championships – is still searching for credibility outside of the region as a whole. It needs to have a marquee game, or at least a decent contest, each weekend. When taking an early look at the best games involving a conference team, they seem to be concentrated on specific weeks:

So, for less than half of the season, the ACC has at least a game that will keep them in the national spotlight…a number that could easily rise if someone used their brains.

Finally, the conference has shown they officially don’t care about one of the main things that makes college football the best sport out there – the rivalries between in-state programs or members of the same conference.

Mainly, the idea of having Miami play Florida State the third weekend of the season (the earliest meeting for a non-season opening game between the schools since 1972) is an absolute joke. Another rivalry that suffered is Duke vs. North Carolina, which was usually played one of the final weeks in November – but will now be played on September 23rd.

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But don’t worry – Boston College and Syracuse will get to play on the final week of the season since they have been in the ACC for about 15 minutes…maybe 30 minutes for the Eagles.

I get that there is plenty that goes into making a conference schedule and not everyone is going to be happy with the result. But even with that excuse, the conference gave off the impression – on the surface – that they threw darts at a board and created their 13 week slate in about five minutes.

Maybe someday, the ACC will realize just how much of a treasure they have in the sport. With it’s current roster of teams, you have 10 complete national titles and one split title – just one behind the SEC that has 11 complete and one split. The other Power Five conferences? The Big Ten has seven complete titles, the Big 12 has three and the Pac 12 has one complete and two splits (the other two titles belong to independent teams BYU and Notre Dame).

Yet, despite that, the ACC still acts like football is the ugly sister in their sports world. Sooner or later, the conference is going to have to accept that while basketball may have built it, football is taking over.