Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich thinks the Atlantic Coast Conference will make a decision on the nine-game ACC football schedule debate when the league’s athletic directors get together for their annual fall meeting in October.

The ACC’s athletic directors decided on Aug. 12 to delay the vote of going to a nine-game conference schedule or keep the eight-game schedule and require all members to play at least two Power Five non-conference opponents each year.

ESPN’s is requiring a new scheduling format be set before it begins the ACC Television Network in 2019. ACC commissioner John Swofford reported earlier this week that the league has until December to make a decision, but Radakovich believes it will be voted on in October when everyone is together.

“I really think we will make it in October,” he said on Friday. “There is really no scheduled time for us to get together again. When we had our conference call a couple of weeks ago, I think people understood that this is a position of such magnitude that we really need to be in a room together to talk it through.

“While a conference call is a convenient avenue for many decisions that need to be made within a conference, something like this is when people need to be in a room and have the ability to talk to one another.”

Earlier this month, Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney went on record as to why Clemson is against the nine-plus-one model. He believes it takes away the flexibility of playing teams such as Auburn, Georgia and Texas A&M every year.

Radakovich backed up his football coach’s assessment on Friday.

“We are firmly entrenched in the eight-game camp. It has worked well for Clemson. We have had a scheduling philosophy that has, not only with our rivalry game with the University of South Carolina, but we have gone out and played top level opponents.

“We think that is a real positive. We think that is very important for us. So we are in that camp.”

A nine-game conference schedule would not bode well for Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech or Louisville. They are the only ACC schools that already play a home-and-home series against their in-state and SEC rivals.

Clemson and South Carolina are required by South Carolina legislation to play every year. Florida State plays a home-and-home game against rival Florida, while Georgia Tech does the same against Georgia and Louisville plays Kentucky.

Last month, ESPN reported it spoke with all of the ACC head coaches and only Miami’s Mark Richt supported a nine-game schedule, while Syracuse’s Dino Babers said he did not mind going to a nine-game schedule, but he preferred to stay at eight games.

Clemson opens this season at Auburn on Sept. 3, and will play the SEC’s Tigers in Death Valley next year as well. Clemson will play Texas A&M in 2018 and ’19 in a home-and-home series, and will play at Notre Dame in 2020 and ‘22.

If the league goes to a nine-game conference format, the days of playing other Power 5 non-conference teams are probably over for Clemson. With South Carolina being a permanent opponent it means the Tigers will have to schedule five ACC road games on the years they play the Gamecocks at home, and four on the years they play USC in Columbia.

That leaves Clemson with just two games left to schedule, which they would like to keep in Death Valley.

Like most schools, Clemson does not want to lose that seventh home game because it helps support the athletic department with funding for the non-revenue Olympic sports and in so many other areas as well.

“It is also important for us for the community and for the region that we have seven home games,” Radakovich said. “Seven home games are much easier to achieve for us with an eight-game conference schedule.”

Obviously, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Louisville are all pushing for the eight-plus-two model.

“It has been an incredibly close vote the last couple of years when it has been a topic of conversation,” Radakovich said. “But we continue to work with some of our schools that we know are of a like mind to make sure we continue to stay in that area.”

The ACC has played eight conference games every year since Florida State joined the conference in 1992. With the league now bigger than it ever has been and with league members pressuring to play other league members every few years as opposed to every five or six, some want to go to the nine-plus-one model.

Could the conference consider eliminating divisions and thus cross-division permanent rivalries?

“There are some cross-division rivalries that have longstanding relationships, such as Florida and Miami,” Radakovich said. “That is one of the things. They played 30 or 40 years prior to both joining the ACC so they want to make sure to keep that game going by setting them up in other divisions and that being the permanent opponent. They were able to capture that.”

The conference also isn’t fond of eliminating games between Clemson and Georgia Tech and North Carolina and NC State.

“I don’t think you can do away with them in just one fell swoop,” Radakovich said. “There will need to be some others, whether it is people moving divisions or other things that would be looked at, but right now ACC Football is as strong as it has ever been and we have gotten an awful lot of national exposure. I don’t see the need to tinker with that at this point and time.

“Our new television agreement and the network has put a couple of covenants in as it relates to playing Power 5 schools so we will have to work hard to make sure we adhere to those guidelines that we agreed to.”