Notre Dame & Clemson have struck a 12-year annual football scheduling deal, sources tell @YahooSports. The series works independently of the ACC structure but does count as one of ND's five ACC games.Irish also expected to play FSU & Miami more regularly.— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 6, 2025
Reading all this, I would be surprised if our home and home cycle with ND is less than a decade long. Annual matchups with Clemson, as well as potentially FSU and Miami as well?
I mean at this point, those 4 are going to be operating independently of the rest of the conference.
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I'm sure whit will find an answer to this by scheduling a home and home for 12 years against James Madison
Get real, it would be 2 in harrisonburg for every 1 in bburg ... but it will be worth it bc they share $50k of the ticket sales
Let's get some more ECU games in there while we're at it.
Your signature is singing right now
How in the F*&# did the ACC allow this? I dont care about less time against ND, but putting a deal in place on top of the one already written into the existing agreement just wreaks of shit management and corruption.
The most generous interpretation of this news is that the ACC is trying anything possible to create big name matchups to build TV ratings, get more dollars, and improve the conference's brand/image.
The least generous interpretation of this news is that this is a blatant power grab; something the blue(ish) blooded schools in the conference are doing to the detriment of other members.
Both. The two groups agree to something for entirely different reasons/motivations.
The Athletic has an article on Iowa State's successful programs and how it got there. Tech's lack of vision makes this news even more disheartening.
Bring back Inventing the Future!
Inventing the future -> "Know your place"
Obligatory comment from me:
Cyclones!
At least 1 of my teams is doing something right. Assuming it's behind a paywall, right? I'd like to read it, but not going to pay to just read 1 article.
This is all part of the strategy to appease Clemson and FSU. Note that the games will count against the 5-game commitment for ND to play ACC opponents. That means that there are only 3 slots available each season now to play ND since they already play Stanford annually. I doubt ND will grant the ACC an additional game per season. And you can bet that those remaining 3 slots will go to FSU and/or Miami each year.
I posted below but just to reiterate here that the games only count against the 5 games in years they were already scheduled which means this has a lot less effect on the ACC as a whole than I originally thought.
Is it because we're falling into irrelevancy?
Are we still falling, or have we already fallen there?
I choose to live in denial
So ND, Miami, FSU, and Clemson formed their own cool kids table to try to corner the new revenue split model. Well at least we can really lean into that underdog/overlooked mentality again.
lol shit you're right. With the new revenue model where ratings will drive payouts, they just walled themselves off from the rest of the conference to guarantee a disproportionate split of the pie.
The fact the conference is letting them get away with this, allowing them to walk all over the rest of us, is complete horseshit. Our conference leadership is not acting in the best interests of the conference anymore.
And we don't have any better options unless the Big10 or SEC comes calling. The GoR doesn't expire until '36 (?), so we have to wait this out and then decide if we
renew or go independent.... College football is quickly becoming an afterthought for me... glad I was here for our glory years, but I'm mentally ready to move on from college football.
Yeah as time passes I realize I care far, far more about professional sports than I do college. College is just a complete shitshow where the rich have rules in place to ensure that the rich stay obscenely rich and the poor are actively pushed further into the dirt.
At least in the pros, everyone is generally set up on an even playing field due to revenue sharing, a salary cap, and salary floor as well as a draft that is set up to help prop up the worst teams to get back to relevance. If you do the right thing in the pros, any team can be the next dynasty.
If you do the right thing in college, your entire roster and coaching staff gets bought by someone else a month later.
I'm surprised the ACC is going along with this. How was this not covered by the overall contract with ND?
Sounds like there is still some wiggle room there. VT should try and secure a piece of the ND action.
Whit's response: A 12 year deal with the other ND. North Dakota. 4 home, 8 away.
This does seem to be something ESPN would want as well. Any chance it opens the door for the league to renegotiate? I would assume FSU tries something similar soon.
That would be great - in ice hockey.
this clarification is pretty important:
But again, this is the league setting it up for Clemson, FSU, Miami, and ND to operate outside the bounds of the rest of us, propping themselves up with more guaranteed bigger draw games (NBC will always get better ratings than CW or ACCN) that will inevitably guarantee them getting more revenue from the tv deal than anyone else, and there will be fuck-all we will be able to do about it.
But do the NBC ratings count? They aren't part of the television deal as it stands right now.
Also in years they are at Clemson that dont count towards ACC games do they count towards revenue share split?
Nonconference away games do not count towards shared revenue. I don't know if those ratings factor into the ACC revenue distributing algorithm. I can't imagine they would.
Yes – this does contribute to shared revenue, but again, I don't know if nonconference gains are used in the ACC's revenue sharing algorithm
Can't imagine goACC doing something dumb or unfair? Really? LOL - just teasing
I mean I don't know what the league is doing to prop this up. We could go schedule a home + home against a strong opponent and reap the same benefits - but we can't because our brand isn't valued and we suck. This is only special because the ACC's been bending the knee to ND for the past decade.
Is it a set up that likely divides the top half of the ACC from the bottom? Sure, but that's happening anyway and VT has been adamant about sitting idly by and reacting, the ACC is joke of a conference but that isn't their fault that we've refused to make any sort of forward progress or outward investment into the new era of college football.
Man, I think it's less to do with teams being unwilling to play us and more about Scheduling in college football being broken for decades; things need to be scheduled 7+ years in advance, etc
Personally, I'm an advocate that we should be scheduling as difficult as possible. I'd rather get blown out by some blueblood and lose to WVU by seven, then beat Marshall and liberty every year (not that we can even do that... but digress)
Yes the scheduling as a whole is definitely broken but its a lot less of a struggle if you're a brand name and don't commit to long standing home and homes with mid to low tier programs
That's a pretty freaking important piece of clarity, as it affects how many games the ACC is rotating among everyone else. I was a bit surprised that they'd be allowed to do that.
That arrangement makes a lot more sense than the original announcement.
You mean I got all angry for nothing?
You mean Alum emotionally overreacted without all the facts?
This feels like an unnecessary personal shot.
The clarification that these games actually don't count as ACC games in unscheduled years takes a lot of wind out of the announcement. Yes it means they both have more guaranteed marquee matchups but anybody can make those deals. The funny thing is it restricts Clemson far more than ND.
Clemson 9 ACC games
South Carolina
Notre Dame
That gives them one free game per year most years.
Everyone can scream about this being "not fair".
Pure capitalism at its finest. Better teams mean more money. We don't like it? Get better at football, simple as that.
I'm not looking at it from only a VT fans perspective, I'm looking at it as a college football fan. Consolidation of the sport will decrease quality of content and interest.
Just look at playoff projections for this year. There's like 8 schools who will be in this thing every single time. It will be just like the several years of the 4 team playoff that Clemson OU Ohio State Bama got in every time, except lamer.
I was only bothered when it looked like it was using up one of the negotiated ACC slots.
If it's not burning the slots other ACC teams should be getting, I don't really so much care.
You know because FSU was world beating this year