Clemson Football: ACC wisely gave itself built-in wiggle room

The Clemson football schedule has wiggle room, and that was a wise move from the ACC

The 2020 Clemson football season may not go off without a hitch, but it’s clear that the ACC- unlike the Big Ten- was wise in building in wiggle room to the schedule.

While we haven’t seen a Clemson football game interrupted due to COVID-19 yet- and hopefully we won’t- it’s clear that the ACC had plans in place for when those situations would arise throughout the 2020 season when the conference was putting together its schedules.

Through just the first three weeks of the season, we’ve already seen four ACC games postponed or canceled due to positive tests or contact tracing including: NC State at Virginia Tech, Virginia at Virginia Tech, Charlotte at North Carolina, and Notre Dame at Wake Forest.

It should be noted that both NC State and Virginia Tech had problems with the virus earlier in the season and are now slated to play. North Carolina’s game with Charlotte was canceled due to contact-tracing with the 49ers- not the Tarheels- and Notre Dame had an outbreak that forced the Wake Forest game to be postponed until December.

This season was never going to go off without any hiccups, but it has been the flexibility and wiggle room built by the ACC [and the same thing can be said about the Big 12 and SEC] that has allowed it to move forward and reschedule games.

Built-in byes and flexibility are important for this Clemson football season to be played to completion

The three ACC vs. ACC games have all been rescheduled at this point, with two of them scheduled for Dec. 12, a week in which the conference has designated as a universal open week for all teams.

That is a much better plan than that of the Big Ten, which is planning to play nine games in nine weeks with even stricter protocols in place when it comes to testing and contact tracing.

While it still doesn’t guaranteed that all games will be played or that we’ll see a full season, it’s clear that the ACC has done everything it possibly can to get the season in with the most flexibility possible.

It will be interesting to see how this season progresses, but it’s always good to know that Clemson football has some built-in flexibility due to its conference scheduling.