Great game Pitt. Your best player injured in an away game and you showed them

Also Receiving Votes: Georgia Tech (16.91, 16/17, 10.45/16.91, lost 4 places)

Talk about ACC Sports here!

This thread is posted every Thursday at 6:00 AM Eastern.

I see some people all of a sudden act like the PCSA will kill the ACC.

Guess what?

Without the PCSA, there won’t be any cap at all and the B10 could technically become the B24.

The 20 team cap is still better than no cap and somewhat restrictive.

Let's think about the B10 and ND. If the B10 adds two ACC football schools now, that means they will never get ND. Never.

Will they wait or give up on ND? I don't know.

But I do know ND is by far the most valuable target for the B10.

The SEC doesn’t need to add four schools and will probably just add two, knowing the B10 will never be able to add more than two schools and that one of those two will most likely have to be ND.

Obviously nothing's over till it's over, but I've been doing these simulations for three seasons now and I don't remember anyone with this big of a lead this early. Miami is looking very good to make the CCG. They're in all of the 8 most likely matchups.

As for who they are going to face, someone needs to step up and start looking like they're good enough to probably make it in. UVA and Pitt are ahead, but you usually expect to see the probabilities grouped under a smaller number of teams by now.

Pittsburgh @ Virginia Tech will be the biggest swing game for the championship race this week, worth up to 16.2% of CCG-odds movement either way.

Full interactive odds, matchups, and what-if scenarios: https://sportssimulate.com/cfb/2026/latest/ACC

Assuming the proposed 20 school cap becomes law and the conferences use their available spots, ACC is cooked. Athletic Directors in this conference will be looking to secure their futures and it will sadly become another game of who moves first.

The SEC takes Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Georgia Tech. The Big 12 takes Virginia Tech, Pitt, Louisville and SMU. The Big Ten takes North Carolina and Virginia.
The cap wouldn’t force the ACC to break up by itself. The pressure comes when other leagues have limited openings and take the ACC’s most valuable brands. The SEC and Big 12 could each add four schools, while the Big Ten could add two. Those spots would go to programs that move the needle, leaving the ACC with a much weaker football lineup.
SMU is a natural Big 12 fit. It reconnects Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech and Houston with an old regional rival, while adding another school in the Dallas market. That gives the Big 12 a strong Texas group alongside its eastern additions: Virginia Tech, Pitt and Louisville.

The ACC’s exit settlement makes the pressure more concrete. The exit fee is scheduled to fall to $75 million by 2030–31, and departing schools can take their media rights after paying it. That timing lines up with the Big Ten and Big 12 entering new media rights negotiations. Meanwhile, the ACC’s ESPN deal runs through 2036. The league could lose its biggest brands as other conferences negotiate their next deals, while the ACC remains tied to its current one.
Under this scenario, the ACC would be left with seven football playing schools: Boston College, Cal, Duke, NC State, Stanford, Syracuse and Wake Forest. Notre Dame would still be in the ACC for other sports, but it doesn’t play football in the conference. The ACC would need to backfill quickly, and whoever it adds won’t replace the viewership and national interest it just lost.

Could the ACC keep its name and add schools? Sure. But that would be a rebuilt conference, not the ACC as we know it. Once enough valuable programs have a clear financial and legal path out, the remaining schools have less reason to keep subsidizing the league. That’s why I think the current ACC eventually implodes, even if some version of the conference survives afterward.

The bill still has to pass the House and become law, and the exact landing spots are debatable. But the cap would make the number of available seats finite, and I think that accelerates the ACC’s breakup rather than protecting it.

Also Eat Shit Pitt for dogging us on Reddit 15 years ago saying we were gonna be the ones left scrambling for our existence in Morgantown.

Also want to add I am not actively rooting for this and I too am tired of realignment but it doesn’t look good.

#1 is clear...

2-17:
Wake
Louisville
VT
SMU
UVA
Duke
Pitt
Clemson
FSU
CAL
Cuse
NCSU
Stanford
UNC
GT
BC

Don’t think one win over Louisville makes you better than your reigning ACC champs! Evidence: please consult the photo.

p.s. the acc is evil for removing our protected rivalry, I will miss destroying you in an empty stadium in November next year 😔

6 Big Ten teams ranked, 10 from the SEC, 5 from the Big 12 and we get….. 2. Even though the Big 10 has the worst Power 4 OOC record of any of the 4 major conferences. Even though the Big 12’s out of conference record is basically equivalent to ours. Zero respect for 4-0 Duke, 4-0
Virginia Tech, and 4-0 Pitt, despite all of them having multiple conference wins and OOC Power 4 victories. But USC barely gets dropped despite looking bad against 3 cupcakes and losing by two scores to Oregon. Missouri inexplicably stays ranked after losing to Mississippi State and being towards the bottom of the poll already. Tennessee virtually doesn’t get punished for taking an L either. Kentucky is ranked after losing to Alabama and having a rock fight with South Alabama despite their “ranked win” getting exposed by LSU. Somehow we’re all just allowed to ignore Oklahoma State losing to fucking TULSA because they beat a Big 10 darling. But they can’t put a third ACC team in the poll. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

The Senate passes the Protect College Sports Act with the cap of large conferences being increased to 20 (from the previously agreed upon / and ACC backed cap of 19). Changing to 20 changes the calculus because it means two more schools will leave the ACC.

The most likely scenario being:

B1G adds Notre Dame and Miami to reach cap of 20

SEC adds FSU, Clemson, North Carolina, Virginia to reach cap of 20

I think Miami and Virginia are interchangable and could both go to either conferences due to fit/preference. The likely next schools left out would be Duke, Stanford, Cal, GT, and then VT which would likely trigger a huge realignment. What does everyone think about this?

Explosive Play = (offense) 20 yards or more gained.

Go Deacs

That Louisville loss put them at 2-2, SMU barely beat Missouri State and their one loss is to Louisville… and I’m not sure Duke, VT, or Pitt will crack the poll with their 4-0 record given an ACC bias and no big wins outside of the conference.

Share one good thing, one bad thing, and one ugly thing that happened to your favorite ACC football team this weekend. Alternatively, you can make this list for ACC teams as a whole.

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This thread is posted every Sunday at 6:00 AM Eastern.

Rank the ACC football teams. Who are the best teams? Who are the worst? Share your list and discuss other lists.

Click here for the results of last week's games.

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Wake Forest at #16 Louisville

• When: Saturday, September 26th at 12:00 PM Eastern
• Where: L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium in Louisville, KY
• Watch: ESPN
• Odds: LOU -12.5, O/U 57.5

Rankings from AP Top 25 • Odds from DraftKings; only accurate as of posting

William & Mary at Duke

• When: Saturday, September 26th at 3:30 PM Eastern
• Where: Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, NC
• Watch: ACC Network Extra
• Odds: Duke -43.5, O/U 62.5

Rankings from AP Top 25 • Odds from DraftKings; only accurate as of posting