There are a purported 19 football rivalries between ACC schools1, so I’ve ranked them by the spiciness of the rivalry:
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — True hatred
🌶️🌶️🌶️ — Spicy
🌶️🌶️ — Can get good if the teams are good
🌶️ — I guess it has some history
🫑 — I did not know this was a “rivalry”
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — True hatred
Unfortunately, I don’t think any ACC football rivalries currently rank as “true hatred.” The Ohio State-Michigan, Bama-Auburn and OU-Texas games are appointment viewing even if you’re not a fan of those teams. No ACC (football) rivalry has that same pull, although several did at their peaks, and FSU-Miami (see below) is the most likely to boil into true hatred.
🌶️🌶️🌶️ — Spicy
FSU-Miami: In the ‘80s through early 2000s, this would rank as “true hatred” given the national prominence, juggernaut teams and legendary moments. It might have lost some luster in recent years, but it’s still a clash between two of the sports’ biggest brands. There’s also the three-way Florida Cup (?) with UF, but that feels secondary and sorta made-up compared to the actual rivalry game
UNC-Duke (Battle for the Victory Bell): In basketball, UNC-Duke is the best rivalry in
collegesports. Neither team is great at football, so there’s certainly less heat. But I’m scoring as 3 peppers because it borrows heat from basketball and there’s the Victory Bell trophy. I’m a sucker for a rivalry trophy, and the victors spray painting it after winning is a cool tradition.UNC-NC State: State is a bit of the “odd man out” in the Tobacco Road triumvirate. Everyone knows UNC-Duke, and State tries extra hard to stir up emotion and boost its clout. I can genuinely say that I consider State a rival, that their fans annoy the sh*t out of me, and probably my favorite UNC football memory was against State2. There’s not nearly the level of mutual respect that I hold for Dukies, though.
Clemson-NC State (Textile Bowl): This isn’t the biggest rivalry for either team, but I love the name. While Clemson has a healthy lead in the all-time series (and recent years, as well), NC State has played spoiler or had heartbreaking losses, usually in riveting fashion. For a team that’s looking to get over the hump and make an ACC Championship Game, it feels like Clemson is the final boss.
VT-UVA (Battle for the Commonwealth Cup): I struggled with placing this one. On paper, it’s got all the ingredients of a juicy rivalry: in-state bragging rights, history, a trophy. But it’s been dominated by VT in recent years (UVA has 2 wins since 2000), so the heat depends on the strength of the teams, but it still ranks as a legit rivalry.
🌶️🌶️ — Can get good if the teams are good
Clemson-FSU: This feels like a “rivalry of convenience” in the sense that they’ve been the two best ACC teams and the only consistent CFP contenders in recent years. But they don’t have much history, so I’m bucketing them at 2 peppers because the heat of the game feels like it depends on the stakes of that season.
VT-Miami: In the Big East days of the early 2000s, these teams had several top-5 and top-10 matchups. To me, a rivalry needs to transcend eras and seasons. The longevity of a rivalry depends on each class of students feeling some baseline level of amity toward a school, so a once-great rivalry can’t rank as well if the current students don’t feel the heat. VT-Miami typifies that class of games.
🌶️ — I guess it has some history
Clemson-BC (O’Rourke-McFadden Trophy): A common theme of this section is that I wasn’t aware two teams claimed to be rivals. I’m scoring this as 1 pepper because it has a trophy, so they invested some effort. But BC hasn’t won since 2010, and the trophy wasn’t created until 2008, so we’re using “history” liberally
Clemson-GT: They first played in 1898, and, surprisingly, GT leads the all-time series. There’s not much heat these days (GT last won in 2014), but the 19th century certainly qualifies as history
NC State-Wake: They first played in 1895 and have 117 all-time meetings.
Cuse-Pitt: They first played in 1916 and have 79 all-time meetings.
VT-GT (TechMo Bowl): This wasn’t on my radar initially but it does have a name, so I’ll score one for the Tech nerds
UNC-UVA (The South’s Oldest Rivalry): This is not a real rivalry. I suppose it’s noteworthy that UNC and Virginia have played for so long (first game 1892, 128 games), but no one really pays attention to this, and schools aren’t collectively good enough for this to appear on the national radar. It’s not even truly the oldest rivalry, so the name is wrong, too.
UNC-Wake: In no way is this a rivalry game. Wake is just another game on our schedule. Between Duke and State, I’ve used by almost all of my rival energy, and any reserves are left for UVA. I think Wake is just so inoffensive and generally irrelevant that they can’t elicit any level of hatred from opponents. The funniest tidbit is that the first meeting (1888) was actually before the first UNC-UVA meeting (1892), but this series isn’t labeled the “oldest” because we don’t feel it merits it.
Duke-NC State: This is sorta the ripple effect of the notes in the State-UNC rivalry. It feels a bit one-sided in the sense that State probably cares more about the game than Duke and State is generally much better at football. But in basketball, these are similarly quasi-rivals, so there’s some history in that sense.
🫑 — I did not know this was a “rivalry”
BC-Cuse: I cross-referenced two sources for this post: NCAA 25’s list of rivalry games3 and Wikipedia. This game didn’t even show up in Wikipedia, so that’s telling. It seems logical that the ACC’s two far-flung northeastern teams would have a rivalry but news of it had not traveled south to reach me
BC-VT: This series extends back to the Big East days, so I’m tempted to put them in the “has history” tier. However, this is the fourth time VT has appeared on the list and the third time for BC. You can’t really have more than one or two true rivals, so this ranks lower
FSU-UVA (Jefferson-Eppes Trophy): Normally, if you have a trophy, I’d bump you to the “has history” tier. But they’re playing very infrequently, and the Orlando Sentinel called the game “one of the lesser known rivalries in college football.” FSU has also dominated the series 14-4, but it humors me that UVA currently holds the trophy.
Duke-Wake: Once again, I cross-referenced two sources for this post: NCAA 25’s list of rivalry games and Wikipedia. This game didn’t even show up in Wikipedia, so it’s no real rivalry.
Read the Rest of the Fan Guide
Part 1: A (brief and recent) history of ACC football
Part 2: Cliff notes on every ACC team
[You are here] Part 3: ACC rivalries, ranked
Part 4: Intros to Stanford, Cal and SMU
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There are a ton of rivalries outside the conference that aren’t noted here. For example, Lville-Cincy has a game called Battle for the Keg of Nails. Hot damn that sounds cool
Gio Bernard’s punt return