Absolutely. When you have so many teams, and so many of them are far away, the only reason to care about the games as a casual fan is if one or both teams are highly ranked, which in the ACC doesn't happen a lot. No one other than hardcore fans really cares about 4-3 GT versus 3-4 BC.
Having a smaller number of teams that play each other every season and are within close geographical distance helps allow other storylines and reasons to care about the games to develop. People care about Clemson/GT every season, even back before Clemson was so good.