By the bye

There’s plenty of ways to vet a schedule.

Here’s one most folks don’t think about.

SEE RELATED:

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For major-college conferences with a league title game, there is only one bye week next season. As a result, it is theoretically helpful to avoid playing a team coming off its bye week, since there’s extra time to prepare and get rested.

(Figuring out whether this is true or not is a project for the summer).

So how does this impact the ACC? Let’s take a look (*-Thursday night game):

School	Bye	Post-bye foe
Boston College	Oct. 31	at Virginia
Clemson	Oct. 10	Wake Forest
Duke	Oct. 17	Maryland
Florida State	Oct. 17	at North Carolina*
Georgia Tech	Nov. 21	Georgia
Maryland	Oct. 31	at N.C. State
Miami	Sept. 12	Georgia Tech*
North Carolina	Oct. 17	Florida State*
N.C. State	Oct. 24	at Florida State
Virginia	Sept. 26	at North Carolina
Virginia Tech	Oct. 24	North Carolina*
Wake Forest	Nov. 21	at Duke

So North Carolina is a post-bye opponent three times, although they share a bye with Florida State heading into their Thursday night game. So not a big deal on that one.

Locally, Maryland and Virginia pop up once, which is about what you’d expect with the vagaries of the schedule.

Teams that aren’t a post-bye opponent in the conference schedule include Boston College, Clemson, Miami and Virginia Tech.

Is it much of an advantage? Who knows. But it is something quirky for a February morning.

—- Patrick Stevens