The ACC will soon have to decide whether or not it will adopt a nine-game conference schedule — as many leagues across the country already do. The ones that do are the Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 — leaving just the SEC and ACC inside the Power 5 to not have one. At Georgia Tech's football media day on Thursday, Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski said via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the league could come to a decision in the next "couple of weeks or so."
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Bobinski also offered a potential alternative on the table for the league instead of a nin-game schedule — one that likely most ACC teams would either be highly in favor of or oppose. Bobinski revealed that the conference is highly considering mandating that instead of a nine-game conference schedule, teams inside the ACC would have to schedule two games with Power 5 opponents each season.
"I would tell that you that I think we'll get that decision here in the next couple of weeks because we need to," Bobinski said via the AJC's Ken Sugiura. "You can't put your non-conference schedule on hold forever. You've got to be able to move it, so getting the resolution on that's important."
The league already mandates that teams have to have at least one Power 5 game outside of the ACC each year. I think this is a pretty strong and favorable alternative to a nine-game conference schedules, and for some teams in the league, it wouldn't really effect schedules — Florida State plays Florida every year and opens with Ole Miss this season, and Georgia Tech plays Georgia each year, and have games with Vanderbilt and Tennessee lined up for 2016 and 2017.
In some people's eyes, this might even make an ACC team's schedule look even better than a nine ACC games, depending on how aggressively they decide to schedule within the Power 5.
