The 2026 ACC travelogue

With the 2026 season, the ACC is attempting to transition to a nine conference game model.  There are two major issues with this transition.  First, it's mathematically impossible for a 17-team conference to schedule 9 conference games for everyone.  At best, only 16 teams can play a nine game schedule, with the last team only playing eight.  On top of that, due to various other schedule restrictions, only 12 teams will be playing the nine game schedule in 2026.

With an odd number of conference games, there is not going to be an even split of home and away conference games.  For 2026, there are three types of teams:

• 5 teams playing 8 games
• 6 Teams playing 9 games (5 away)
• 6 Teams playing 9 games (4 away)

What we are tracking here is the total mileage traveled by each ACC team for conference games.  Mileage is based on the distance between the two stadiums in Google Maps with some rounding.  I admit that not all of the numbers are consistent, but close enough for a reasonable margin of error.  The distances listed for each game are just one way trips.  The total miles calculates round trips (so all of the other numbers added together and multiplied by 2).

Not every team has a fifth away game.  Teams playing 9 conference games are in bold.  Teams are sorted based on total mileage from least to most.

Team	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Game 4	Game 5	Total Miles
UNC	Clemson 270	Duke 11	Pitt 475	uva 190	n/a	1,892
Duke	GT 380	Miami 820	NC State 22	uva 183	WF 82	2,974
Louisville	GT 420	UNC 540	NC State 560	Syracuse 680	n/a	4,400
Syracuse	BC 350	UNC 640	NC State 650	Pitt 360	uva 500	5,000
Florida State	BC 1310	Louisville 662	Miami 475	Pitt 920	n/a	6,734
Georgia Tech	Clemson 125	Pitt 685	Stanford 2450	VT 410	n/a	7,340
Clemson	Cal 2600	Duke 270	FSU 360	Syracuse 860	n/a	8,180
Wake Forest	Cal 2750	GT 320	Louisville 462	NC State 101	SMU 1114	9,494
SMU	FSU 835	Louisville 840	Stanford 1710	Syracuse 1515	n/a	9,800
Pitt	BC 580	Cal 2570	Louisville 390	Miami 1160	VT 325	10,050
Boston College	Duke 700	GT 1100	Miami 1500	SMU 1800	n/a	10,200
Miami	Clemson 750	UNC 815	Stanford 3003	WF 805	n/a	10,746
Virginia Tech	BC 700	Cal 2700	Clemson 300	Miami 890	SMU 1080	11,340
uva	FSU 712	SMU 1210	VT 146	WF 200	NC State* ~4500	13,536
NC State	FSU 625	UNC 23	Stanford 2820	uva* ~4500	n/a	15,936
California	NC State 2840	SMU 1726	Syracuse 2800	uva 2800	n/a	20,332
Stanford	Cal 42	Duke 2800	Louisville 2350	VT 2700	WF 2750	21,284

* - The uva/NC State game is being played in Brazil.  uva is considered the home team, but that game has been included in the travel calculations for both teams for this exercise.  We are using a close estimate of a 9000 mile round trip for both schools.  If the game was being played in Charlottesville, then uva would only have a total mileage of 4,536 and NC State would only travel 7,336 miles (the distance between the two schools is about 200 miles).