Wake Forest’s place in the new ACC

This morning, the ACC revealed that it would officially move to the 3-5-5 system in terms of scheduling and completely dismantle divisions. Each team would play three primary opponents annually and face the other 10 league teams twice during the four-year cycle, once at home and once on the road.

The initial reaction of seeing Wake paired with Duke, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech gives off two immediate reactions.

1. It sucks that Wake didn’t catch either UNC or NC State alongside Duke. In-state rivalry games are fun, we all want to maximize fans coming, and frankly, everyone wants to just beat their rivals. Sucks that Wake couldn’t get their yearly, “ruin State’s season” game.
2. This is an absolute heist for Wake. Duke has been flat-out bad, and even with Elko at the helm, it should still take a few years for them to turn it around. Does Geoff Collins even make it through this season? Brent Pry is new at Virginia Tech and they have a ways to go. You could realistically have three middle to bottom-tier teams in the ACC every year for the next four years.

So what does 2023 look like for Wake?

So in 2023, it looks like a perfect schedule to ramp up a brand new quarterback, which they’ll have. In the non-conference, they’ll have Elon and Vanderbilt at home while traveling to Old Dominion and Notre Dame. Should be 3-1 at worse there. In conference, you still have the three aforementioned meh teams, who knows if FSU figures it out, NC State will have lost Devin Leary, Kedon Slovis might be gone, Syracuse has always been a mess, and then lil ole Clemson. They’re essentially playing a watered-down Atlantic schedule and one you’d prefer to ease in either Mitch Griffis or Michael Kern into the ACC.

Recruiting wise, this honestly helps Wake more than hurts them. Wake traditionally only gets a handful of guys from North Carolina. Both by virtue of who they’re having to recruit against and also the academics in the state. They’re moving more towards pilfering Virginia and Georgia, and what better way to do that over the next four years than by beating two in-state schools?

You also get a bit of flavor as the fans of the team in Blacksburg have... turned their noses up at the even presence of being matched up with Wake Forest, even with their AD trying to back up a Brinks truck in order to hire Dave Clawson away. Can’t even win 10 games in the Coastal, but think they’re above other teams, touch grass please.

All in all, think this was a major win for Wake. What say you?