ACC Limits Number of Opponents Coming Off Bye Weeks

This off-season Paul Johnson made some comments some comments very critical of the ACC management. In particular he was upset about how Georgia Tech seemingly faces multiple opponents every season who are coming off of a bye week. CPJ accused teams of requesting the week before GT as a bye week and said that the ACC scheduling office was obliging. They denied this. He was very frank, saying “The conference tries to screw us every way they can,”. He was fined for those comments.

Between 2013 and 2017 Georgia Tech has faced 6 ACC teams that were coming off of more rest than the Jackets while the Yellow Jackets enjoyed only two games with that advantage. This season the Yellow Jackets face two teams, Clemson and Wake Forest, that will have a rest advantage. Georgia Tech’s bye week is before the game against Miami, who is also enjoying a bye the week before. UNC has had only six ACC games over the past ten seasons with a rest disadvantage. They have had a rest advantage against Tech 5 times during that same time span.

After Johnson’s comments, Tech AD Todd Stansbury met with ACC officials to create a proposal to limit these imbalances. The ACC agreed to the rule change that will go into effect for the 2018 season. Teams will now face at most one ACC team with a rest advantage per season. This will help make a more balanced schedule and a fairer ACC season. This will help teams such as Georgia Tech and Florida State that have been on the wrong side of this unfairness, while hurting UNC who has received these favorable schedules.