The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Division I. ACC football teams compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The ACC sponsors competition in twenty-eight sports with many of its member institutions held in high regard nationally. Current members of the conference are Boston College, California, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.
ACC teams and athletes have claimed dozens of national championships in multiple sports throughout the conference's history. Generally, the ACC's top athletes and teams in any particular sport in a given year are considered to be among the top collegiate competitors in the nation. Additionally, the conference enjoys extensive media coverage. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the ACC is one of the "Power Four" conferences who had contractual tie-in to a New Year's Six bowl game in the sport of football prior to the playoffs being expanded in 2024.
The ACC was founded on May 8, 1953, by seven universities located in the South Atlantic states, with the University of Virginia joining in early December 1953 to bring the membership to eight. The loss of the University of South Carolina in 1971 dropped membership to seven, but the addition of Georgia Tech in 1979 for non-football sports and 1983 for football brought it back to eight, and Florida State's arrival in 1991 for non-football sports and 1992 for football increased the membership to nine. Since 2000, with the widespread reorganization of the NCAA, ten additional schools have joined, and one original member (Maryland) has left to bring it to the current membership of 18 schools. The additions in recent years extended the conference's footprint into the Northeast, Midwest, and West.
Member universities Full members The ACC has 18 member institutions from 12 states. Listed in alphabetical order, these 12 states within the ACC's geographical footprint are California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. The geographic domain of the conference is predominantly within the Southern and Northeastern United States along the US Atlantic coast, but recent conference realignment has brought it to California and Texas. It stretches from Florida in the south to New York in the north and from California in the west to Massachusetts farthest east.
When Notre Dame joined the ACC, it chose to remain a football independent. However, its football team established a special scheduling arrangement with the ACC to play a rotating selection of five ACC football teams per season. For the 2020 season, due largely to the suspension of most non-conference games by other Power Five conferences due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the ACC reached an agreement to allow Notre Dame to play a full, 10-game conference schedule and be eligible to play for the ACC championship.
The ACC is unique among power conferences in that it has a high proportion of private universities as members; eight of its 18 members are fully private institutions (not counting state-related Pittsburgh, a former private university). By contrast, the Big 12 has three private members, the Big Ten two, and the SEC one.
Since August 2, 2024, the 18 members of the ACC are:
Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment Median earnings Endowment Nickname Joined Colors Clemson University Clemson, South Carolina 1889 Public 28,747 $75,142 $1.124 Tigers 1953 Duke University Durham, North Carolina 1838 Nonsectarian 17,112 $115,722 $11.890 Blue Devils Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1789 Public 32,234 $81,033 $5.728 Tar Heels North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina 1887 Public 37,323 $75,943 $2.220 Wolfpack Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1834 Nonsectarian 9,121 $92,943 $1.997 Demon Deacons Charlottesville, Virginia 1819 Public 25,924 $91,448 $10.217 Cavaliers Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 1885 Public 47,946 $119,180 $3.167 Yellow Jackets 1979 Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 1851 Public 43,234 $66,924 $1.030 Seminoles 1991 Coral Gables, Florida 1925 Nonsectarian 19,593 $85,019 $1.590 Hurricanes 2004 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia 1872 Public 38,294 $85,647 $1.954 Hokies Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 1863 Catholic 15,280 $96,145 $3.778 Eagles 2005 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1787 Public 34,525 $73,701 $5.804 Panthers 2013 Syracuse University Syracuse, New York 1870 Nonsectarian 22,948 $79,406 $2.097 Orange Notre Dame, Indiana 1842 Catholic 13,174 $100,684 $17.897 Fighting Irish Louisville, Kentucky 1798 Public 22,139 $67,853 $1.008 Cardinals 2014 Dallas, Texas 1911 Nonsectarian 11,842 $95,051 $2.122 Mustangs 2024 Berkeley, California 1868 Public 45,699 $96,018 $9.370 Golden Bears Stanford University Stanford, California 1891 Nonsectarian 18,446 $136,959 $37.631 Cardinal
Notes
Former members In 1971, the University of South Carolina left the ACC to become an independent, later joining the Metro Conference in 1983 and moving to its current home, the Southeastern Conference, in 1991. On July 1, 2014, the University of Maryland departed for the Big Ten Conference.
Institution Location Founded Type Nickname Joined Left Colors Currentconference University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 1801 Public Gamecocks 1953 1971 SEC University of Maryland, College Park College Park, Maryland 1856 Public Terrapins 1953 2014 Big Ten
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Membership map
Membership timeline
History
Founding and early expansion The ACC was established on June 14, 1953, when seven members of the Southern Conference left to form their own conference. These seven universities became charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. They left partially due to the Southern Conference's ban on post-season football play that had been initiated in 1951. (Clemson and Maryland had both defied the Southern Conference's bowl rule following the 1951 season and were banned from playing other conference teams in the 1952 season.) After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, the seven withdrew from the Southern Conference at the spring meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953, at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. The bylaws were ratified on June 14, 1953, and the new conference was created. The conference officials indicated a desire to add an eighth member, and candidates mentioned were Virginia, VPI and West Virginia. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, and admitted Virginia, a former Southern Conference charter member that had been independent since 1937, into the conference. Virginia's president Colgate Darden argued fiercely against joining the ACC or any conference, while UVA athletics director Gus Tebell argued in favor. In the end, UVA's Board of Visitors approved joining the ACC by a vote of 6–3.
In 1960, the ACC implemented a minimum SAT score for incoming student-athletes of 750, the first conference to do so. This minimum was raised to 800 in 1964, but was ultimately struck down by a federal court in 1972.
On July 1, 1971, South Carolina left the ACC to become an independent.
Racial integration Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on the regional agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. Involved were issues of equality, racism, and the alumni demand for the top players needed to win high-profile games. The ACC took the lead. First they started to schedule integrated teams from the north. Finally ACC schools—typically under pressure from boosters and civil rights groups—integrated their teams. With an alumni base that dominated local and state politics, society and business, the ACC flagship schools were successful in their endeavor—as historian Pamela Grundy argues, they had learned how to win: The widespread admiration that athletic ability inspired would help transform athletic fields from grounds of symbolic play to forces for social change, places where a wide range of citizens could publicly and at times effectively challenge the assumptions that cast them as unworthy of full participation in U.S. society. While athletic successes would not rid society of prejudice or stereotype—black athletes would continue to confront racial slurs...[—minority star players demonstrated] the discipline, intelligence, and poise to contend for position or influence in every arena of national life.
1978 and 1991 expansions The ACC operated with seven members until the addition of Georgia Tech from the Metro Conference, announced on April 3, 1978, and taking effect on July 1, 1979, except in football, in which Tech would remain an independent until joining ACC football in 1983. The total number of member schools reached nine with the addition of Florida State, also formerly from the Metro Conference, on July 1, 1991, in non-football sports and July 1, 1992, in football. The additions of those schools marked the first expansions of the conference footprint since 1953, though both schools were still located with the rest of the ACC schools in the South Atlantic States.
2004–2005 expansion
The ACC added three members from the Big East Conference during the 2005 conference realignment. Initially, the conference targeted Boston College, Miami, and Syracuse. The expansion was controversial, as Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia (and, initially, Virginia Tech) filed lawsuits against the ACC, Miami, and Boston College for allegedly conspiring to weaken the Big East Conference. Then-Virginia governor Mark Warner, who feared Virginia Tech being left behind in a weakened Big East, pressured the administration of the University of Virginia to lobby on behalf of their in-state foe. Eventually Virginia Tech replaced Syracuse in the expansion lineup and ACC expansion was agreed upon. Miami and Virginia Tech joined on July 1, 2004, while Boston College joined on July 1, 2005, as the league's twelfth member and the first from the Northeast.
2010–present 2010–2022
The ACC Hall of Champions opened on March 2, 2011, next to the Greensboro Coliseum arena, making the ACC the second college sports conference to have a hall of fame after the Southern Conference.
On September 17, 2011, Big East Conference members Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh both applied to join the ACC. The two schools were accepted into the conference the following day, once again expanding the conference footprint like previous expansions. Because the Big East intended to hold Pitt and Syracuse to the 27-month notice period required by league bylaws, the most likely entry date into the ACC (barring negotiations) was July 1, 2014. However, in July 2012, the Big East came to an agreement with Syracuse and Pitt that allowed the two schools to leave the Big East on July 1, 2013.
On September 12, 2012, Notre Dame agreed to join the ACC in all conference sports except football and men's ice hockey (as the ACC does not sponsor men's ice hockey; of all other ACC universities, only Boston College sponsors men's ice hockey) as the conference's first member in the Midwestern United States. As part of the agreement, Notre Dame committed to play five football games each season against ACC schools beginning in 2014. On March 12, 2013, Notre Dame and the Big East announced they had reached a settlement allowing Notre Dame to join the ACC effective July 1, 2013.