Duke is set to face Virginia next weekend in the ACC Championship, and because they have five losses, a Duke victory in Charlotte “could result in the ACC champion missing the playoff.” The CFP assigns automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, so if Duke is ranked lower than champions from the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and two Group of Five leagues -- and “that could very well be the case” -- then the ACC winner “would not make the cut.” If Virginia wins, the ACC “will be fine,” as the school would “assuredly qualify for an automatic bid” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 11/29).
James Madison Univ., sitting at 11-1 and set to play in the Sun Belt Championship Game on Friday, is a “serious threat to put the ACC in one of the most embarrassing situations it could ever imagine.” When the current format was put together with automatic bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions, it was “generally assumed that four of those champions would always be the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC.” Now, one of those Power Four leagues “could be told that its champion isn’t as good as two champions from the American and Sun Belt.” Perception is “reality, and suddenly the perception of the ACC isn’t one of power.” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips has to “spend the next week trying to sell a conference title game” featuring a Virginia team the CFP selection committee has “never considered the best team in your league facing a team that same committee isn’t likely to include in the field.” And “you have to pretend you want both teams to have fun while the whole world knows you’re hoping beyond hope that Virginia doesn’t lose this game” (CBSSPORTS.com, 11/30).
With a “chance the ACC gets shut out of the playoff for the fourth time in the past five years, and this time it would be with a 12-team field,” there “have to be some pretty nervous people in the league’s Charlotte headquarters” (WASHINGTON POST, 11/30).
