Starting this season, the ACC will welcome three new schools into the conference: SMU, Stanford, and California. With Clemson and Florida State vying to leave, the future of the ACC is a big question mark, and realignment talks are just beginning. If that happens, it remains to be seen which other schools will follow suit.
This season, Virginia Tech will travel to play Stanford on Oct. 5 before its bye week. Stanford is the only new ACC team the Hokies will face, but the addition of a new conference will change the schools’ travel schedules, something Cal and Stanford will feel keenly.
Both former PAC-12 schools will have a tough road schedule this season, but that was expected with the realignment. Cal will travel more than 20,000 miles this season, from the West Coast to the East Coast and everywhere in between. The Bears will travel to Auburn (Sept. 7) for a nonconference game, while ACC road trips will include Florida State (Sept. 21), Pittsburgh (Oct. 12), Wake Forest (Nov. 8) and SMU (Nov. 30).
Stanford will travel less, but not significantly less. The school will fly more than 14,000 miles for football, with an even more rigorous schedule than Cal. Stanford plays Syracuse on Friday night, Sept. 20, before traveling to Clemson eight days later and then hosting Virginia Tech. After Brent Pry and his team visit, Stanford will play Notre Dame a week later, before finishing off the long road trip at North Carolina State on Nov. 2.
At the University of California and Stanford, football alone will travel a combined total of more than 34,000 miles this fall, in a landscape that’s changing in college sports with restructuring, moving, moving and more moving.
