NC State's 2016 ACC Football Schedule has been Released

It's tougher than last year's

It's here. The Pack's 2016 ACC schedule has been officially released. We already knew the dates of the out of conference games and the teams that would make up the ACC portion. Now we know how it all lays out. Here is the full schedule:

September 3	William & Mary
September 10	@East Carolina
September 17	Old Dominion
September 24	Bye
October 1	Wake Forest
October 8	Notre Dame
October 15	@Clemson
October 22	@Louisville
October 29	Boston College
November 5	Florida State
November 12	@Syracuse
November 19	Miami
November 25  (Friday)	@North Carolina

The thing that immediately jumps out is the North Carolina game being played on a Friday, which I'm not sure has ever happened before. The toughest stretch looks to be from October 8th to October 22nd. All three of those teams could be ranked (two of them certainly will be) and two of those games come away from home. The bye week isn't in a very good spot as it shows up in week four before a home game against Wake Forest. Ideally it would be a little later and before a really good team.

It looks like State has a pretty decent chance to open the season 4-0 for the third straight year, although I'm not ready to make any definitive statements about what should happen in week two. Things get real after that and I only see two more games the rest of the way that you could say the Pack "should win." Those two are obviously Syracuse and Boston College.  One thing to note is that the Florida State game comes the week after Florida State plays Clemson, which would be perfect timing for another Seminole letdown in Carter-Finley.

Most preseason predictions will likely have State at 6-6 or 7-5 depending on what they think of the Miami game.

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