Syracuse football: what might the ACC 3-5-5 schedule options look like

We are back with more Syracuse Orange football schedule talk. Now that the NCAA has cleared the way for conferences to change how they determine championship game participants, all signs point towards the ACC moving to eliminate divisions and head to a 3-5-5 schedule model-possibly as early as 2023.

So we came up with our guesses as to how a 3-5-5 model might look for the Orange. It will be interesting to see how the final model looks, but more interesting might be the process for revising the permanent rivals and the rotational groups.

Kevin:

Three permanent rivals: Boston College, Pitt, Florida State

Group A: Clemson, NC State, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest

Group B: Miami, UNC, Virginia Tech, Duke, Louisville

Rationale: Syracuse, BC and Pitt seemed locked together and since FSU’s AD said he wants to have BC or Syracuse I think he’ll get his wish. It seems that BC and Miami will push to be paired so the Orange will get the Seminoles to play. As far as the groups go, I’d suspect that the push will be to try and find competitive and travel balance so I tried to pair teams using that methodology. You would hope that Syracuse would push to have Clemson and Miami in opposite scheduled to come to the Dome in years when the Orange travel to FSU.....but we’ll see how it shakes out.

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

Mike:

Three permanent rivals: Boston College, Pitt, Wake Forest

Group A: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia

Group B: Louisville, Miami, NC State, UNC, Virginia Tech

Rationale: BC and Pitt are both geographically and historically the two options that make the most sense. Wake Forest may seem like an odd-ball choice over the Florida schools and Louisville, but here’s my reasoning. Since Wake Forest is easily the smallest in terms of seating capacity, this matchup allows them to face another team with a smaller stadium, and SU fans still get a trip to North Carolina but in a more intimate setting. There’s some recency bias after last year’s OT game with a chance to grow a new competitive rivalry. (At least we know who’s winning the mascot battle there.) Like Kevin said, the 5 and 5 groups should be done to space out travel and level of competition as evenly as possible.

Steve:

Three permanent rivals: Boston College, Pitt, Virginia Tech

Group A: Clemson, Miami, NC State, Duke, Virginia

Group B: Florida State, Louisville, UNC, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech

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What do you think will be the final result of the 3-5-5 for Syracuse? Let us know in the comments.