18 Schools•Division I•Est. 1953
The Atlantic Coast Conference was founded on May 8, 1953, at the Sedgefield Inn near Greensboro, North Carolina. Seven schools left the Southern Conference to form the new league: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina and Wake Forest. The Southern Conference had grown to 17 members, which made scheduling difficult, and it had banned bowl games, while the new league allowed its teams to accept bowl invitations.
Virginia was admitted on December 4, 1953, becoming the eighth member. The first ACC championship was held in swimming on February 24, 1954. Women's sports joined the conference in 1977, with the first women's championship contested in tennis at Wake Forest. South Carolina withdrew in 1971, and Florida State joined in 1991, part of a long period of growth that carried the league's footprint well beyond its Carolina roots.
For roughly seven decades the conference office was based in Greensboro, the city where the league was born. In 2023 the ACC moved its headquarters to Charlotte, a city that had long hosted marquee league events, including the football championship game and many editions of the men's basketball tournament. From that first meeting in 1953 onward, the ACC has been a familiar name to college sports fans across the country.
Official Website
The Atlantic Coast Conference was founded on May 8, 1953, at the Sedgefield Inn near Greensboro, North Carolina. Seven schools left the Southern Conference to form the new league: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina and Wake Forest. The Southern Conference had grown to 17 members, which made scheduling difficult, and it had banned bowl games, while the new league allowed its teams to accept bowl invitations.
Virginia was admitted on December 4, 1953, becoming the eighth member. The first ACC championship was held in swimming on February 24, 1954. Women's sports joined the conference in 1977, with the first women's championship contested in tennis at Wake Forest. South Carolina withdrew in 1971, and Florida State joined in 1991, part of a long period of growth that carried the league's footprint well beyond its Carolina roots.
For roughly seven decades the conference office was based in Greensboro, the city where the league was born. In 2023 the ACC moved its headquarters to Charlotte, a city that had long hosted marquee league events, including the football championship game and many editions of the men's basketball tournament. From that first meeting in 1953 onward, the ACC has been a familiar name to college sports fans across the country.
Official Website
The Atlantic Coast Conference fields 17 football programs at the NCAA Division I level. The conference was founded in 1953.
Boston College, Clemson University, Duke University, Florida State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Southern Methodist University, Stanford University, Syracuse University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Louisville, University of Miami, University of North Carolina, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest University.
Current ACC members have won 36 national championships in football, including titles some schools won before joining the conference. The leaders: Pittsburgh (9), Cal (5), Miami (5), Georgia Tech (4).
The largest home venues in ACC football are Memorial Stadium (Clemson, 81,500 seats); Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium (Florida State, 79,560 seats); Acrisure Stadium (Pittsburgh, 68,400 seats).
RallyFuel tracks 2,714 ACC football athletes across the conference, from 48 states and 19 other countries. The most common home states are Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.