The Atlantic Coast Conference will feature an eight-game conference schedule starting in 2013, rather than the nine-game slate originally planned, the league announced in a press release on Wednesday.

The conference made that change and revised its scheduling for basketball due to the addition of Notre Dame in September.

Last February, the ACC announced its plan for a nine-game conference schedule when Syracuse and Pittsburgh began competition. But after the Fighting Irish agreed to play five football games against ACC opponents each year while joining the league for all other sports by 2015 at the latest, conference officials decided to go back to the eight-game model.

“The addition of Notre Dame gives us an opportunity to reinforce a number of conference rivalries in basketball and Olympic sports while also giving our schools greater flexibility in nonconference football scheduling,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in the release.

 

The men’s and women’s basketball schedules will remain 18 games as planned, but the conference gave each school two primary partners to highlight rivalries.

Syracuse was matched with Pittsburgh and former Big East rival Boston College.

Schools will play each league opponent once and their partners twice — once on the road and once at home — every season.

Published on October 3, 2012 at 3:02 pm

Contact Ryne: rjgery@syr.edu