What Does the ACC's 3-5-5 Scheduling Model Mean for BC?

Boston College got a good draw. There's no doubt about it.

The ACC announced Tuesday that, starting in 2023, the league will adopt a 3-5-5 scheduling model that will do away with divisions and call for all 14 conference members to face three primary league opponents annually and square off against the other 10 ACC teams twice during a four-year cycle (once at home and once on the road).

The ACC Championship will be made up of the conference's top-two teams, based on win percentage.

BC's three permanent ACC opponents are Pitt, Syracuse and Miami.

Now, let's unpack this news.

BC was in the Big East from 1991-2004. The Eagles jumped to the ACC for the 2005 season, and they haven't budged since. Before 1991, BC was an independent.

BC has finished the season ranked inside the AP Top 25 14 times, five of which were during the Eagles' Big East tenure. The basketball rivalries that came with the conference get the most attention, but BC football's stay in the league was pretty memorable, too. It included the tail end of Tom Coughlin's Eagles career as well as the rise of Tom O'Brien. In the process, BC went 7-2 in bowl games, notably stringing together five straight postseason victories, and posted seven different eight-plus-win campaigns.

To put that in perspective, the Eagles are still searching for their first season with eight or more wins since 2009.

Pitt, Syracuse and Miami were all in the Big East with BC from 1991-2003.

Syracuse: the closest school to BC, in terms of proximity. Not only that, but the programs have rich history. They were both founding members of the Big East, and they've played each other 54 times. The only other team BC's faced more often is Holy Cross. The Eagles first played Syracuse on Oct. 18, 1924, and the programs went head-to-head annually from 1971-2004. A new streak started in 2013 when Syracuse moved to the ACC and joined BC in the Atlantic Division.

Pitt: similar to Syracuse, a regional foe. It's really wild to think about how BC has played the Panthers only three times since both programs have been in the ACC. And one of those matchups was the byproduct of a COVID-19-affected schedule. Pitt and BC overlapped in the Big East from 1991-2004. During that span, the programs met 13 times, playing every year except 1992. BC won eight of those 13 matchups.

Miami: a nostalgic draw. The Hurricanes played BC 13 times from 1990-2003. They won each of those matchups. Miami leads the series, 24-6, but the Eagles have won two of the last three matchups. BC claimed the programs' most recent meeting: a 27-14 Red Bandana Game win in 2018. Of course, the "Hail Flutie Game" occurred in Flutie's 1984 Heisman Trophy season. Flutie connected with wide receiver Gerard Phelan on a last-second Hail Mary to give BC the win. At the time, both programs were independents.

BC hasn't won an ACC Championship in football. The Eagles have come close. They made back-to-back conference title game appearances in 2007 and 2008 but lost to Virginia Tech both times despite having defeated the Hokies in the regular season each of those years.

Then Jeff Jagodzinski was infamously fired for interviewing for the New York Jets head coaching position, and the program slowly unraveled under Frank Spaziani. By the time Steve Addazio got BC back to being somewhat competitive in the ACC, the road to the Atlantic Division title ran through Clemson, which won six straight conference titles from 2015-20.

On one hand, clinching a conference title game berth in the division format was easier. Wake Forest from this year is a good example. The Demon Deacons had the kind of season BC fans thought their team might.

During its dark horse campaign, Wake Forest rattled off eight wins to start the year, including five against ACC foes. The Deacons drew a pair of Coastal opponents in Duke and Virginia that ranked 14th and 13th, respectively, in total defense. That doesn't count their loss to Coastal-representing North Carolina, but that crossover matchup technically went down as a non-conference game as Wake Forest had just three other non-conference opponents for 2021. Wake Forest also had the luxury of Clemson experiencing an off-year, Florida State remaining, for the most part, a sleeping giant and BC being ravaged by injuries.

The point is, in the division model, circumstance and luck can play into a run to the conference title game. Hence, Coastal Chaos, which saw every team from the division make the ACC Championship amid the seven-year period of 2013-19.

But there can still be circumstance and luck in the 3-5-5 model. And there should be more parity. Without being tied down to the Atlantic Division, BC won't have to worry about playing Clemson every year. The Eagles will get more Coastal opponents, similar to their 2020 schedule. That season, BC went 5-5 in ACC competition and came pretty close to ending its now 23-game losing streak to AP-ranked opponents.

If you're worried about BC's potential drop-off once the quarterback-wideout pairing of Phil Jurkovec and Zay Flowers departs for the NFL, you should be a bit more comfortable in knowing that the Eagles have a pretty kind schedule on tap.

It's a 2023 slate that features seven home contests and an extremely weak batch of non-conference opponents. Plus, the ACC draw that season appears friendly, too. Of course, it's a ways out, so there's no 100% accurate barometer.

But that's just what it seems at the moment. Here's the home/away split for the 2023 slate.

HOME:

Northern Illinois (Sept. 2)

Holy Cross (Sept. 9)

UConn (Oct. 28)

FSU (TBA)

Miami (TBA)

UVA (TBA)

Virginia Tech (TBA)

AWAY:

Army (Oct. 7)

GT (TBA)

Louisville (TBA)

Pitt (TBA)

Syracuse (TBA)

Bottom line: It's not a bad time for Emmett Morehead to take the reins under center, and for Jeff Hafley's recruiting classes to really get their chance to shine.

— The ACC Championship would have been the same seven of the last eight year if there weren't divisions and instead you seeded the title game with the top-two teams in the conference in terms of ACC win percentage.

— BC won't travel to Death Valley until 2026. It's justice for the Eagles, who, because of the pandemic, made three straight trips to Memorial Stadium from 2019-21. BC will host Clemson in 2022 and 2024.

— After this season, the Eagles aren't going to play North Carolina State again until 2025. BC has a higher win percentage against N.C. State (.556) than it does versus any of its other current Atlantic Division opponents.

— The BC-Virginia Tech crossover rivalry will be no longer. Since the Eagles joined the ACC, they've played the Hokies every year. It made for some epic matchups in the mid-2000s. Lately, though, the games have been mostly lopsided.