The last Atlantic Coast Conference football team without a loss in its overall record this season is Georgia Tech, and the eighth-ranked Yellow Jackets have a path through the regular season without having to face any of the ACC’s other three teams currently in the AP Top 25.
In fact, the 17-team conference has no head-to-head matchups in November between Georgia Tech (8-0, 5-0 ACC), No. 10 Miami (6-1, 2-1), No. 15 Virginia (7-1, 4-0) and No. 16 Louisville (6-1, 3-1). There have been only two pairings between any members of that quartet all season, with Louisville losing at home to Virginia before beating Miami on the road when the Hurricanes were ranked No. 2.
The growth of the Power Four conferences — due to recent expansion, the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Southeastern Conference each has at least 16 football-playing members — has created even more unbalanced schedules and fewer opportunities for potential annual matchups of some of their top-ranked teams in league competition. There is still the possibility of meeting in a conference championship game in early December, and maybe even in the 12-team College Football Playoff after that because there are no restrictions there on matchups of teams from the same league.
Top-ranked Ohio State (7-0, 4-0) and No. 2 Indiana (8-0, 5-0) won’t play each other in the Big Ten regular season, and reigning national champion Ohio State will also avoid No. 6 Oregon (7-1, 4-1), which did face Indiana and lost 30-20 at home earlier this month. The SEC’s only undefeated team, third-ranked Texas A&M (8-0, 5-0) will get through the regular season without having to play No. 4 Alabama (7-1, 5-0), No. 5 Georgia (6-1, 4-1) or No. 7 Ole Miss (7-1, 4-1).
The Big 12’s only undefeated team is BYU (8-0, 5-0), which is tied with Miami at No. 10 in the AP poll, but the Cougars still have road games in conference play against No. 13 Texas Tech (7-1, 4-1) and No. 17 Cincinnati (7-1, 4-0) after already winning at No. 24 Utah (6-2, 3-2). The Cougars joined the expanding Big 12 in 2023, a year after it was the last power conference with 10 teams able to play a round-robin league schedule.