ACC football schedule: NC State, UNC meet on a Friday; Florida State, Clemson play in late October

The ACC is getting smarter.

The conference will keep its top two football teams away from each other until the end of October and, more importantly, from the SEC.

Clemson and Florida State, which have combined to win the last five ACC titles and have represented the conference in the College Football Playoff the last two years, will meet Oct. 29 in Tallahassee, Fla.

The ACC made sure to keep the Tigers and Seminoles off television on the same day as the Alabama-LSU game.

With the addition of NFL games making Thursdays more competitive, there will be five Friday showcases for the ACC in 2016, including N.C. State’s trip to North Carolina on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving. The Wolfpack and Tar Heels last met on Friday in 1995. UNC and Duke will play on Nov. 10, a Thursday.

Clemson’s 23-13 win over FSU took a back seat on Nov. 7 to the SEC’s spotlight game between the Crimson Tide and LSU. The ACC’s biggest game was relegated to a 3:30 p.m. kickoff, while the SEC’s showcase went off at 8 p.m.

LSU and Alabama, the 2015 national champion, are set to play Nov. 5 next season.

Moving the Clemson-FSU game back in the calendar helps build the hype for the ACC’s best two teams. They played in September three times in a four-year span between 2011 and 2014, which is too early for a big game to properly marinate.

Each team will have some work to do to go into the 2016 matchup with an unbeaten record, but at least the ACC made an effort to get the most bang for its buck out of its best regular-season matchup.

The highlights, and some lowlights, of the schedules that were released on Tuesday:

Any given Thursday, Friday or Saturday

The ACC does not have preferred status with its primary television partner (ESPN). Hence the need to move some games from the traditional day of the week to get more attention.

The conference has four games scheduled for Thursday nights, including North Carolina at Duke on Nov. 10.

Thursday night used to be college football’s domain until the NFL moved in. The pro game’s decision to move to Thursday has prompted ESPN to play more games on Friday.

Boston College plays both Clemson (Oct. 7) and Florida State (Nov. 11) on a Friday.

Nobody has the “any day of the week” mentality down like Louisville. In its third ACC season, the Cardinals will play a Thursday night game against Charlotte in the opener (Sept. 1) and two Friday night games (Sept. 9 at Syracuse and Oct. 14 vs. Duke). Their return game with Houston also has the option of being played on a Thursday (Nov. 17).

Not every game needs to be on a Saturday; that’s no longer the reality in this era. But there’s something to be said for the normalcy of playing every Saturday.

Racetracks and Shamrocks

Give the ACC some credit for creativity this season. The locales will run exotic. Georgia Tech and Boston College open the season in Dublin, Ireland, a 7:30 a.m. kickoff back home for both fan bases.

But that’s tame compared with Virginia Tech’s Sept. 10 date with Tennessee at Bristol Motor Speedway. The “Battle for Bristol” organizers are hoping to pack more than 150,000 into the NASCAR track for a new attendance record for a college football game.

UNC’s neutral site date with Georgia, on Sept. 3 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, and Florida State’s date with Ole Miss two days later at the Citrus Bowl also pale in comparison.

Wait, what about Notre Dame?

Nope, still not a full-time ACC member in football.

The Irish aren’t playing in Ireland, and they aren’t playing either Clemson or Florida State this season.

Instead, Brian Kelly’s team – which could open the season in the top 10 – will get Miami, Virginia Tech and Duke at home and will go to N.C. State and face Syracuse at the Meadowlands in New Jersey.

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "ACC football schedule: NC State, UNC meet on a Friday; Florida State, Clemson play in late October."