The 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference football season, part of the

2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 152nd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision. The r ...

, was the 69th season of

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

play for the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC). It began on September 2, 2021, and ended on December 31, 2021. The ACC consists of 14 members in two divisions.

Previous season

Clemson defeated Notre Dame 34–10 in the

ACC Football Championship Game The ACC Championship Game is an annual American college football game held in early December by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) each year to determine List of Atlantic Coast Conference football champions, its football champion. From its ince ...

. The victory, along with a 10–1 regular season record, earned Clemson a berth in the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

. The Tigers were the number two seed in the playoff and faced

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

in the

2021 Sugar Bowl The 2021 Sugar Bowl was a college football bowl game played on January 1, 2021, with kickoff at 8:00 p.m. EST (7:00 p.m. local CST). The Sugar Bowl was one of two College Football Playoff semifinal games, it featured two of the four t ...

, where the Tigers lost 28–49.

Preseason

ACC Kickoff

The 2021 ACC Kickoff was held on July 21 and 22nd at the

Westin Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. , the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline. History Wester ...

hotel in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. Each team had their head coach and three players available to talk to the media at the event. Coverage of the event was televised on

ACC Network ACC Network (ACCN) is an American multinational subscription-television channel owned and operated by ESPN Inc. Dedicated to coverage of the Atlantic Coast Conference, it was announced in July 2016 and launched on August 22, 2019. The channel o ...

. On July 26, 2021, the ACC Preseason Media Poll was released, which projected Clemson to win its 7th consecutive ACC title.

Preseason ACC Player of the Year

Source:

Preseason All-Conference Teams

Source:

=Offense

=Defense

=Specialist

Preseason award watchlists

Recruiting classes

Coaches

Coaching changes

There are no coaching changes for the 2021 season.

Head coaching records

''Notes'' *Records shown after the 2021 season *Years at school includes the 2021 season

Rankings

Schedule

The regular season will begin on September 2 and will end on November 27. The ACC Championship game is scheduled for December 4, 2021.

Regular season

Week one

Week two

Week three

Week four

Week five

Week six

Week seven

Week eight

Week nine

Week ten

The game between North Carolina and Wake Forest is being played as a non-conference game and will therefore not count in the conference standings.

Week eleven

Week twelve

Week thirteen

Championship game

ACC vs other conferences

ACC vs Power Five matchups

The following games include

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

teams competing against

Power Five conferences The Power Five conferences are the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA D ...

teams from the

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its fo ...

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

/ Notre Dame,

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

and SEC). All rankings are from the AP Poll at the time of the game.

ACC vs Group of Five matchups

The following games include ACC teams competing against teams from the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

C-USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are ...

, MAC,

Mountain West The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...

Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — des ...

ACC vs FBS independents matchups

The following games include ACC teams competing against FBS Independents, which includes

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

New Mexico State New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's tw ...

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Ha ...

or UMass.

ACC vs FCS matchups

The

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

comprises 13 conferences and two independent programs.

Records against other conferences

Regular season Post Season

Postseason

Bowl games

For the 2020–2025 bowl cycle, The ACC will have annually ten appearances in the following bowls:

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in th ...

and

Peach Bowl The Peach Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played in Atlanta, Georgia since December 1968. Since 1997, it has been sponsored by Chick-fil-A and is officially known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. From 2006 to 2013, it was officially re ...

(unless they are selected for playoffs filled by a SEC and at-large team if champion is in the playoffs),

Military Bowl The Military Bowl is a post-season National Collegiate Athletic Association-sanctioned Division I college football bowl game that has been played annually each December in the Washington metropolitan area since 2008. The game was originally held a ...

Duke's Mayo Bowl The Duke’s Mayo Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that has been played at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, since 2002. The game currently features a matchup between a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) ...

Gator Bowl The Gator Bowl is an annual college football bowl game held in Jacksonville, Florida, operated by Gator Bowl Sports. It has been held continuously since 1946, making it the sixth oldest college bowl, as well as the first one ever televised natio ...

, Cheez-It Bowl,

Fenway Bowl The Fenway Bowl is an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game played at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Organized by ESPN Events and Fenway Sports Management, it features teams from the American Athletic Confe ...

Outback Bowl The ReliaQuest Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, usually on New Year's Day. The event has been formerly called the Hall of Fame Bowl from 1986 to 1995 and the Outback Bowl from 1996 to ...

Holiday Bowl The Holiday Bowl is a post-season NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game that has been played in San Diego since 1978. San Diego County Credit Union has been the game's title sponsor since 2017, and the bowl has b ...

and

Sun Bowl The Sun Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played since 1935 in the southwestern United States at El Paso, Texas. Along with the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl, it is the second-oldest bowl game in the country, behind the Rose Bowl. ...

. The ACC teams will go to a New Year's Six bowl if a team finishes higher than the champions of

in the final College Football Playoff rankings. The ACC champion are also eligible for the

if they're among the top four teams in the final CFP ranking. Rankings are from AP Poll. Rankings are from CFP rankings. All times Eastern Time Zone. ACC teams shown in bold.
The Gator Bowl opponent for Wake Forest was originally scheduled to be Texas A&M. Due to COVID-19 issues with Texas A&M, they were replaced with Rutgers.
The Sun Bowl originally scheduled Miami to face Washington, but Miami had to withdraw due to COVID-19 issues.
The Military Bowl originally scheduled Boston College to face East Carolina, but Boston College had to withdraw due to COVID-19 issues.
The Fenway Bowl originally scheduled Virginia to face SMU, but Virginia had to withdraw due to COVID-19 issues.

Awards and honors

Player of the week honors

All Conference Teams

Source: First Team Second Team Third Team

ACC individual awards

ACC Player of the Year :

Kenny Pickett Kenneth Shane Pickett (born June 6, 1998) is an American football quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Pittsburgh, where he won the Johnny Unitas Golden ...

, Pittsburgh ACC Rookie of the Year :

Tyler Van Dyke Tyler Van Dyke (born March 1, 2001) is an American football quarterback for the Miami Hurricanes. High school career Van Dyke attended Suffield Academy in Suffield, Connecticut. Over his final two high school seasons he had 4,600 passing yards a ...

, Miami ACC Coach of the Year :

Dave Clawson David Paul Clawson (born August 16, 1967) is an American football coach and former player. He currently serves as the head football coach at Wake Forest University, where he was named the 2021 ACC Coach of the Year. Clawson previously served a ...

, Wake Forest ACC Offensive Player of the Year :

, Pittsburgh ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year :

, Miami

Jacobs Blocking Trophy The Jacobs Blocking Trophy is the name of several similar annual college football awards bestowed by a conference upon their best blocker. The awards are named in honor of William P. Jacobs, founder and president of Presbyterian College from 1935 t ...

: Ikem Ekwonu, NC State ACC Defensive Player of the Year :

Jermaine Johnson II Jermaine Curtis Johnson II (born January 7, 1999) is an American football defensive end for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Independence CC and Georgia before transferring to Florida Sta ...

, Florida State ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year : Andrew Mukuba, Clemson

All-Americans

Consensus All-Americans

Currently, the NCAA compiles consensus all-America teams in the sports of

Division I FBS The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A ...

football and Division I men's basketball using a point system computed from All-America teams named by coaches associations or media sources. Players are chosen against other players playing at their position only. To be selected a consensus All-American, players must be chosen to the first team on at least half of the five official selectors as recognized by the NCAA. Second- and third-team honors are used to break ties. Players named first-team by all five selectors are deemed

unanimous All-American The College Football All-America Team is an honorific college football all-star team compiled after each NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) season to recognize that season's most outstanding performers at their respective positions. ...

s. Currently, the NCAA recognizes All-Americans selected by the AP, AFCA, FWAA, ''TSN'', and the WCFF to determine consensus and unanimous All-Americans.

Associated Press

AFCA

FWAA

The Sporting News

WCFF

National Awards

Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award The Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award is given annually in the United States to the nation's top upperclassmen quarterback in college football. Candidates are judged on accomplishments on the field as well as on their character, scholastic achievemen ...