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The ACC is holding their annual meetings this week and one of the most important items on the agenda was a vote for the number of conference games each team must play each year - eight or nine. Currently at eight, the league voted to keep it that way - the vote was 8-6, according to ESPN. One of those voting for eight games, understandably, was Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson.
I wrote about this before, but my vote would have been for eight, too. Pitt is a team that has good reason to keep it that way, in my opinion, with the Notre Dame rotation and trying to squeeze Penn State in. If the Panthers can keep the Nittany Lions on the schedule in the future, in years they face Notre Dame, there would have only been room for one other opponent.
While Pitt has also seemed against the idea of continuing the series against West Virginia, keeping it at eight also makes it a little easier to play that game if they want to. I'm not sure it will change the minds of the athletics department or not, but if Penn State became a regular on the schedule, it would have been very difficult to get West Virginia on the schedule if there was a switch to nine games. Pitt could, of course, play Penn State and West Virginia every year if they really wanted to, but in years where they play Notre Dame, there wouldn't be room for any other non-conference opponent in a 12-game schedule.
In other news, all ACC teams will have to play an opponent from one of the other four major conferences starting in 2017. For the Panthers, that likely won't be a problem. And with Penn State already on the schedule from 2016 - 2019, the earliest they need to concern themselves with that would be 2020. Notre Dame would also count towards that game.
One minor note to keep an eye on is if the Independents will count. Per the Post-Gazette, teams like Army, Navy, and BYU might count. That's significant because Pitt regularly plays a team like Navy, meaning that could fulfill the requirement.
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