ACC schedule to be released Wednesday

ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 9: Members of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Cheerleaders perform during the game against Jacksonville State Gamecocks on September 9, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Credit: Scott Cunningham

Credit: Scott Cunningham

ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 9: Members of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Cheerleaders perform during the game against Jacksonville State Gamecocks on September 9, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

The ACC will release the schedule for the 2018 football season Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Georgia Tech has home conference games against Clemson, Duke, Miami and Virginia and road conference games against Louisville, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech. The game against Louisville will be the Yellow Jackets’ first in school history.

Tech also has four non-conference games already scheduled – Alcorn State (September 1), at USF (September 8), Bowling Green (September 29) and at Georgia (November 24). There is space on the calendar for one open date. The Jackets have also never faced USF or Bowling Green.

One thing is known about the schedule already. Tech won’t play more than one ACC game in which its opponent has an open date the week prior but the Jackets do not. Coach Paul Johnson and athletic director Todd Stansbury saw to that by leading a change in the ACC’s scheduling model to address that situation.

Johnson criticized the league last January following the release of the 2017 schedule, in which two opponents (Clemson and Wake Forest) were to play the Jackets coming off open dates while Tech was not. It continued a pattern for the Jackets of often being placed in such games while other teams were not. At the ACC spring meetings this past May, after being presented evidence by Stansbury, ACC athletic directors voted unanimously to address the situation.

Starting with the 2018 season, ACC teams can only play one conference game in which it plays the previous week while its opponent is coming off an open date.