The ACC Runs Through Who?

Armando Bacot had this quote after North Carolina's first game against Duke in Chapel Hill:

He certainly has a point from a basketball sense, winning the ACC men's basketball regular season with a two-game lead over second-place Duke. But who does the ACC run through as a whole athletic conference? There has been much talk about the "Magnificent 7" feeling like other conference members are simply dead weight. Does the ACC run through these seven? One could argue the ACC runs through Florida State, going 13-0 in football in the 2023 season, or Clemson winning a men's soccer national championship in 2023. I decided to answer this question with a head-to-head approach. 

Each year, Virginia and Virginia Tech compete in the Commonwealth Clash, which records points for each sport both schools sponsor. When the two teams play head-to-head, points are up for grabs. A win for teams that play once in the regular season (e.g., football, men's and women's soccer) is worth one point. If teams meet twice, (e.g., men's basketball, volleyball) each matchup is worth half a point. In sports that meet three times, (baseball and softball) the series winner wins the point. Matchups in the ACC tournaments are not worth points. Points are awarded for sports that do not directly match up against each other (golf, cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field, swim and dive, rowing) by placement in the tournament, where the higher placing team wins one point. I extended this idea across all of the ACC to see which school truly runs the ACC through the 2022-23 academic year.

Each matchup between schools has a differing amount of points available, since not all schools play each other in all sports. All matchups were scored across all schools. From this point forward I'll define a "win" against another school as winning the challenge against that school. The ACC teams by wins can be separated into 5 tiers:

Tier 5: Bottom of the Barrel:

Boston College (0 wins) - None of the challenges were particularly close, with BC not scoring more than 10 points against any school, and no other school scoring less than 11. 

Tier 4: A few wins:

Pitt (2 wins) - Wins over BC and GT

Georgia Tech (2.5 wins) - Wins over BC, Syracuse. Tied with Clemson.

Louisville (4 wins) - Wins over BC, GT, Miami, Pitt

Syracuse (4 wins) - Wins over BC, Louisville, NC State, Pitt

Tier 3: Middling:

Miami (6 wins) - Wins over BC, Clemson, GT, ND, Pitt, Wake

Virginia Tech (6.5 wins) - Wins over BC, FSU, GT, Louisville, Miami, Pitt. Tied with UNC.

Clemson (6.5 wins) - Wins over BC, Louisville, ND, Pitt, Syracuse, VT. Tied with GT.

Wake (7 wins) - Wins over BC, Clemson, GT, Louisville, Pit, Syracuse, VT

Notre Dame (7 wins) - Wins over BC, GT, Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, VT, and Wake

NC State (8 wins) - Wins over BC, FSU, GT, Louisville, Miami, ND, Pitt, VT, and Wake

Tier 2: Upper Tier:

Florida State (11 wins) - Wins over BC, Clemson, GT, Louisville, Miami, UNC, ND, Pitt, Syracuse, VT, and Wake

Duke (11 wins) - Wins over BC, Clemson, FSU, GT, Louisville, Miami, NCSU, ND, Pitt, VT, and Wake

UNC (11.5 Wins) - Wins over BC, Clemson, Duke, GT, Louisville, Miami, NCSU, ND, Pitt, Syracuse, and Wake. Tied with VT.

Tier 1: Runs the ACC:

Virginia (14 wins) - Won every matchup, and all by at least 3 points. 

Overall Thoughts:

While I think there could be some truth to the "magnificent 7" claim, with none of these schools worse than the middling tier, this shows that the ACC is still competitive, and certainly a successful year in a revenue generating sport might not necessarily mean a team is "running the conference". This was also only for the 2022-23 year, but it would certainly be interesting to see the past 10 years/all time statistics. A full chart of points scored is displayed here:

The number in the box indicates the row team's points against the column team. (Ex: Clemson 17.5, BC 4.5, Clemson wins.)

I wrote python scripts to import data from the ACC website and process the data. The github repository can be found here. Note that this is only for the 2022-23 season.