ACC Watch | The Race To Charlotte
One of the most exciting – or excruciating – features of being in a conference can be the race to get into that league’s championship game.
While the focus this week will be on #4 Notre Dame’s massive showdown with #1 Clemson in South Bend on Saturday evening, almost immediately afterward - win or lose - Irish fans will transition to a new segment of the season, breaking down ACC Championship Game scenarios.
ACC records are all that’s factored into the conference race and whoever wins on Saturday will have a relatively clear path to Charlotte on Dec. 19th, with room for error. Meanwhile, the loser could be paying close attention to Miami.
Clemson (6-0) and Notre Dame (5-0) are the only remaining unbeaten teams in the conference, but Saturday’s loser is likely to find themselves in a tie with the Hurricanes (4-1), who play NC State on Friday night.
After Saturday, the Irish play at Boston College, at North Carolina, home against Syracuse and at Wake Forest. If they beat the Tigers, Notre Dame could afford to drop a game and still reach the league title game at 9-1 in ACC play. Even if Clemson and Miami won out to finish in a three-way tie at 9-1 in the league, the Irish’s win over Tigers would put them above both.
Similarly, if Clemson wins, it would still make the title game even with one loss to either Florida State, Pitt or Virginia Tech since the Tigers would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over both the Irish and the Hurricanes.
By virtue of having beaten Miami already, Clemson’s path to the ACC title game isn’t all that different with a win in South Bend than it is with a loss. Wins in the three games after Notre Dame will assure the Tigers a spot win or lose on Saturday.
Notre Dame’s road to Charlotte would be a little – potentially a lot – more complicated with a loss.
Since the Irish and the Hurricanes don’t face each other in the regular season, there would be no head-to-head result to put one over the other. And, if Notre Dame were to win out after losing to Clemson, and Miami did the same, their win-loss résumés wouldn’t have any differences as far as league tiebreakers are concerned.
Miami’s schedule after this weekend includes games at Virginia Tech and Wake Forest along with home games against Georgia Tech and North Carolina, which would be a heavily-watched contest on Dec. 5th.
A 9-1 Notre Dame and a 9-1 Miami would go all the way down to the fifth league tiebreaker, higher ranked team according to SportSource Analytics’ Team Rating Score. It’s not clear what goes into that formula and it isn’t even clear if those rankings will be made public before they would need to be implemented.
COVID could complicate things, but that would require some chaos, although that wouldn’t be off-brand for this year.
The ACC has a provision that takes the average number of conference games played by all teams in the league and states teams must be within one game of that average to be included in any tiebreaker scenarios. In other words, it would take at least two games being cancelled down the stretch for that to have an impact.
If only one team finishes with less than two conference losses – for example, if Saturday’s loser and Miami each lose again – it opens up a host of other scenarios giving new life to schools like NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech, who all sit with two conference losses as of now.
For now, fans will concentrate on Saturday’s showdown, but the scoreboard watching will start the following week as they try to determine if they will be in Charlotte on Dec. 19th and if so, who will be there with them.
ACC Standings (Overall, ACC)
Clemson (7-0, 6-0)
Notre Dame (6-0, 5-0)
Miami (5-1, 4-1)
North Carolina (4-2, 4-2)
Virginia Tech (4-2, 4-2)
NC State (4-2, 4-2)
Wake Forest (4-2, 3-2)
Boston College (4-3, 3-3)
Pittsburgh (3-4, 2-4)
Virginia (2-4, 2-4)
Georgia Tech (2-5, 2-4)
Florida State (2-4, 1-4)
Duke (2-5, 1-5)
Louisville (2-5, 1-5)
Syracuse (1-6, 1-5)