Five teams Clemson football would love to see added to the ACC
The Clemson football program has absolutely dominated the ACC over the past half-decade, winning five-straight ACC Championships.
The Tigers have gone a combined a 43-2 against ACC opponents in the last five seasons and that has led to quite a bit of success extending to outside of the conference.
While the ACC is seemingly on the rise with programs beginning to recruit at a higher level and new coaches implementing winning cultures, there is always room for improvement.
As we continue to approach the age of conference realignment, here are five teams Clemson football fans would absolutely love to see added to the ACC.
5. Appalachian State
Appalachian State may seem like a small program, but the Mountaineers have been nothing but successful during their FCS run and vault into the FBS.
During the 2019 season, Appalachian State was ranked as high as No. 20 in the nation in the AP Poll and that young program is going to continue to excel and develop over the next few seasons.
Getting the Mountaineers from the Sun Belt wouldn’t be a tough draw and the geographic territory would make a lot of sense.
4. Memphis
Memphis is a little further west than the Atlantic Coast Conference may want to include, but one can’t deny the prominence and promise of the Memphis football program.
Memphis currently plays in the American Athletic Conference and the Tigers have been consistently competing at the top of that conference for a while now.
Making a trip to a beautiful and historical portion of Tennessee wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for Clemson football fans and there’s certainly a chance that Memphis could continue to be a consistent top-25 program, especially with Power-5 appeal.
3. UCF
Sticking with the American Athletic, the University of Central Florida would be a nice addition to the conference.
Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before the Knights become a Power-5 football team. UCF has been consistently on the rise and even claims that it won the National Championship back in 2017.
While UCF isn’t a perennial powerhouse, the university with the ACC’s resources could explode and become a really solid football home for a conference that is desperately in need of adding football powers.
UCF would fit in perfectly in terms of geography (right in between Florida State and Miami) and Orlando would certainly be a fun trip for Clemson football fans to make every other football season- or at least once every now and then depending on the division that UCF would be placed in.
2. West Virginia
West Virginia is the one football program that it just simply never made sense why the Mountaineers weren’t added to the ACC when the conference was expanding.
West Virginia is currently playing in the Big 12 and that has to be taxing on its bottom line and the athletes who are making these travels.
Morgantown, West Virginia is 1,215.4 miles away from the Big 12’s headquarters in Irving, Texas. For those wondering, that’s about an 18-hour drive.
Simple geography is reason enough to add West Virginia to the ACC, but it absolutely wouldn’t hurt to have their football acumen, either.
1. Notre Dame
Notre Dame has taken advantage of the ACC as a conference for long enough.
The Fighting Irish are getting all the benefits of playing in the conference without actually having to join and that needs to come to an end.
Notre Dame is a full-time member in every other sport, but remains an Independent in football. The Fighting Irish are promised six games from the ACC every year and those benefits were given with the hopes that they’d eventually join the conference on a full-time basis at a later date.
That needs to happen sooner rather than later.
It’s time to add another power program to the ACC and increase the conference’s perception. Clemson football has carried the league for long enough and it would be good to see the conference start making some moves to help itself for the future.