Jim Phillips spoke about the challenge of putting together the ACC’s football schedule at ACC Tipoff on Wednesday morning in Charlotte.

The ACC had previously announced conference opponents for all 14 members, but that was before the league voted to add Stanford, Cal and SMU earlier this offseason. That requires a new schedule that fits all 17 full members of the ACC.

Phillips said the ACC will release the schedule soon and said the league is focused on preserving out-of-conference rivalries.

“We want to get those across the finish line. We’re nearing that,” Phillips said when asked about the ACC football schedule. “We’ve worked closely with ESPN, our partner, and closely with our three new schools and our campuses. We’ve had too many iterations to name the number of, but I feel really good about that, while also protecting some very important rivalry games and some rivalry games that we have with other conferences.

“It’s been the ultimate jigsaw puzzle, but feel very, very good about that.”

According to a report earlier this month from Richmond.com’s David Teel, the ACC’s schedule will feature a seven-year rotation with no set number of annual rivals.

The ACC will expand to 17 teams beginning with the 2024 football season.