Brad Brownell didn’t hide his frustration on Wednesday at the 2026 ACC Tipoff in the Hilton Charlotte Uptown. Clemson’s coach made it clear he’s not happy that the Tigers won’t face North Carolina in ACC play this season.
It’s the first time these two charter members of the league will miss each other in the regular season since the 1950-51 campaign, and Brownell plainly doesn’t think that should be happening.
"I don't like it. I said it last year with Virginia: I hate that we don't play everybody.
I don't understand. If we're gonna play 18 games, why not play everybody once and a partner twice?"
Brownell said about Clemson not facing North Carolina during league play. That's just my opinion.
My opinion apparently doesn't mean a whole lot, and it probably shouldn't. But I'll reiterate that in spring meetings."
Brownell’s complaint lands because Clemson and North Carolina are exactly the kind of teams you’d expect to see every year in this league. They’ve both been in the ACC since the beginning, and both programs sit among the conference’s biggest brands. Yet the schedule somehow left out the Tar Heels, even with an 18-team league and an 18-game slate.
Clemson will instead play Florida State twice and avoid North Carolina entirely. Georgia Tech has been identified as Clemson’s permanent rival moving forward, which makes sense geographically since the schools are less than 100 miles apart. But the ACC also added a second repeat opponent, and that created a “no play” situation for everyone.
Brownell has now gone without a season meeting with UNC every year he has coached Clemson, and he clearly sees that as a problem. In his view, teams that have been part of the ACC for generations should be playing each other at least once a year.
The broader issue, as Brownell sees it, is that the league had a clean solution in front of it and missed. Instead of making sure every team got a crack at every other team once, the ACC built a format that leaves out one of the conference’s most recognizable matchups.
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