Ever since the ACC went to an unbalanced schedule, the conference schedule plays a huge factor into the regular season standings. If you don't believe me take a look back at UVA's conference schedule in the 2006-07 season when Dave Leitao led the Cavaliers to a regular season title.
We have a page that will continually update throughout the season that will rank the ACC team's remaining conference schedule from toughest to easiest based upon the success that each team is having. For the preseason though, we use the ACC's Media Predictions to determine the strength of each team. We assign 12 points to Duke since they were picked 1st, 11 to Virginia Tech, 10 to UNC, etc. We then add up a score for each team and take an average to see who plays the toughest schedule. You can check out the results below.
This chart is organized from toughest to easiest conference schedule.
| Toughest Schedules | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Home | Away | ACC Games | Schedule Points | Average |
| Wake Forest | 8 | 8 | 16 | 118 | 7.3750 |
| Virginia | 8 | 8 | 16 | 115 | 7.1875 |
| Boston College | 8 | 8 | 16 | 112 | 7.0000 |
| Clemson | 8 | 8 | 16 | 109 | 6.8125 |
| Miami | 8 | 8 | 16 | 107 | 6.6875 |
| UNC | 8 | 8 | 16 | 107 | 6.6875 |
| NC State | 8 | 8 | 16 | 107 | 6.6875 |
| FSU | 8 | 8 | 16 | 102 | 6.3750 |
| Maryland | 8 | 8 | 16 | 102 | 6.3750 |
| Georgia Tech | 8 | 8 | 16 | 101 | 6.3125 |
| Duke | 8 | 8 | 16 | 100 | 6.2500 |
| Virginia Tech | 8 | 8 | 16 | 84 | 5.2500 |
The chart shows that Virginia Tech has by far the easiest conference schedule. This is because the Hokies only play 3 games against the top 4 ranked teams. While a schedule alone won't help the Hokies or any other team jump to the top of the standings, it could make a one or two game difference. That one game might be the difference between getting an opening round BYE in the ACC Tournament.
