Source.

Some thoughts on this after the jump:

1) This will do nothing but help the ACC come NCAA Tournament time. In recent years, the ACC has suffered a downswing of sorts in terms of number of teams qualifying for the NCAA Tournament. One of the chief culprits of this has been teams playing cozily soft non-conference schedules (looking at you, Seth Greenberg) that probably have cost teams NCAA bids. With the additional league games, two of those non-conference games now become tough ACC games, so every team's strength of schedule gets a bump. And that bump WILL regardless of the extra losses that ACC teams will take - looking at football schedules, the conferences with 9 league games (the Pac 10/12, the Big 12 this year) have all rated significantly higher that comparable conferences with 8 league games in terms of strength of schedule metrics.

2) As a result of the two extra games, I suspect we'll see teams take fewer chances to schedule great non-conference games. While the Thanksgiving tourneys and the Big Ten-ACC Challenge will stay en vogue courtesy of ESPN, it's reasonable to expect teams to schedule more gimme games to recoup the loss of fewer non-conference home games. The article linked above speculated that the Carolina-Kentucky rivalry could be done; it also speculated that Duke might play a less challenging schedule, which I think is pretty ridiculous since they don't play non-conference road games as is.

3) Not a new point concerning the 18 game schedule, but a point about expansion nonetheless: with 14 teams, two ACC teams will have to sit out the ACC-Big Ten Challenge every year. These teams will almost definitely be the smaller profile teams. Like us. Crap.

4) For Wake fans, the biggest bone to pick with the original ACC expansion was the loss of our annual home-and-home series with Duke and Carolina. I still haven't forgiven John Swofford for this. Here's hoping the expanded schedule gives us a redo on the classic "rivalries" that the ACC chose the first time around. With all due respect to Georgia Tech, you're not our rival (I know for a fact that they really don't give a crap about us either). And with all due respect to Maryland, you're not Duke's rival: we are. Make this happen, John Swofford, or I will hunt you down and do horrible, unspeakable things to you.

5) And lastly (in my opinion), Jeff Bzdelik's job just got a wee bit more difficult. I think every Wake fan at this point understands that his job security is likely going to be on the line next season to some degree (whether this is overdue or not is a completely different discussion). In terms of development, he now has less time to tinker with the roster and get the freshmen to learn their roles before conference play starts. Even with the schedule bump, it's these two extra conference games are going to make it that much harder to reach the NIT or NCAA Tournament, which, depending on your opinion, is likely necessary for Bzdelik to survive for the following year.