Last year’s ACC title game featured Virginia and Duke, neither of which played Miami, which barfed all over itself twice during the regular season like the badly-coached monstrosity that it always is. Nevertheless, the ACC is feeling the reverberations from last fall.
The ACC’s updated conference title tiebreakers are as follows:
The No. 1 tiebreaker remains head-to-head. The ACC said no team will be “overly rewarded or penalized” based on the number of conference games it plays. When head-to-head matchups cannot separate tied teams, the ACC will use the Team Success Ranking provided by SportSource Analytics as a way to reward the team with the strongest body of work.
The Blue Devils made the conference championship game over the Hurricanes last year based on the fifth tiebreaker — conference opponent win percentage.
Because the CFP will now give automatic spots to each Power 4 champion, Phillips said it was important to be sure the top two teams in the league will play in the ACC championship game in December in Charlotte.
Conference championship games probably won’t be here that much longer—an expanded playoff will preclude them—so bending over backward for a team that loses twice in the regular season, theoretically, I mean, just if this might come up—it feels a tad contrived. But the people who run the ACC and every other league have to be seen doing something. And here’s a thing.