More Schedule Changes for ACC Football

Two more ACC football schedule changes were announced today, as the 2020 season continues to surprise us just when we think we’ve got it all figured out.

First, the September 19th non-conference game between the Charlotte 49ers and the North Carolina Tar Heels was cancelled. The reason was because there were too many Charlotte offensive linemen in quarantine, thanks to contact tracing and a single positive test for COVID-19 which, according to at least one 49ers player, was not repeatable. Be that as it may, the game originally scheduled for this weekend has been officially cancelled since one of the criteria for playing football is a minimum number of healthy offensive linemen to block.

The second ACC football schedule change involves that Commonwealth to the South of Pennsylvania. Of course, I’m talking about the Virginia Cavaliers and the Virginia Tech Hokies. Their game, also originally-scheduled for this weekend, will now be played on December 12th if all goes according to plan (but then, what has this year?). That potentially puts the Commonwealth Cup in conflict with the ACC Football Championship Game (ACC FCG).

If the Hokies and the Cavaliers are both eliminated from ACC FCG contention early enough, it’s possible the ACC may decide to leave the championship game on December 12th. However, when we consider the fact that the SEC and the Big Ten plan to play their conference football championships on December 19th, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for the ACC to move it’s FCG to the 19th also.

Now that sets up a very strange possibility... with the Pittsburgh Panthers having December 5th open and all but two ACC teams finishing their regular season on that date, you could have a situation where Pitt has three weeks to prepare for a championship game against a Virginia Tech team with only the normal one week to prepare.

It could happen... only in 2020.