Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips is pushing for No. 12 Miami to earn a bid to the College Football Playoff along with the winner of the conference championship game between No. 17 Virginia and unranked Duke.
That comes with the ACC facing a chance of being squeezed out of the 12-team CFP entirely based on Tuesday night’s rankings.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Phillips was emphatic in making his case for both the Hurricanes and the conference’s eventual champion. The ACC had a logjam of five 6-2 teams behind the Cavaliers, triggering a tiebreaker policy that worked through multiple steps before sending the five-loss Blue Devils ahead of the Hurricanes and others to Saturday night’s title game in Charlotte, N.C.
“I have conviction and confidence in our teams, starting with Miami,” Phillips told the AP. “The second piece of that is the Virginia-Duke winner should absolutely be in this College Football Playoff.”
Current scenario
The Hurricanes (10-2) have closed strong as the conference’s highest-ranked team in the CFP rankings, while the Cavaliers (10-2) finished as the lone 7-1 ACC team.
Duke’s inclusion in the ACC title game, triggered by then-ranked SMU losing at California last weekend, represents a potential chaos agent.
Automatic CFP bids go to the five highest-ranked conference champions. That theoretically accounts for the Power Four champions from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC, plus the highest-ranked champ from a Group of Five conference: the American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West or Sun Belt.
In Tuesday’s CFP rankings, Miami was a bubble team for an at-large bid at No. 12 while Virginia was 17th for a simple win-and-in scenario in Charlotte.
But Duke (7-5) is unranked. Meanwhile, both of the American’s title-game teams (North Texas and Tulane) are in the CFP rankings, putting that winner in line for a win-and-in ticket.
And then there’s James Madison (11-1), which entered the CFP rankings at No. 25 before Friday’s Sun Belt title game against Troy. That, along with a Duke win against Virginia, potentially could give the Sun Belt the fifth champion’s spot and leave the ACC’s CFP hopes resting with the on-the-bubble Hurricanes.
Phillips, who previously has been optimistic about landing multiple bids, knows the scenarios. He’s undeterred that the ACC deserves two bids all the same.
“I’m not naive,” he said, “but I have conviction about it.”
Miami’s case
Miami’s position stands out with the Hurricanes having a head-to-head win with Notre Dame, which sits two spots ahead in the CFP rankings despite that 27-24 season-opening loss.
That result seemingly would be a differentiator considering the teams have matching 10-2 records and comparable ESPN strength-of-schedule rankings (Notre Dame 42nd, Miami 44th). The Hurricanes have more wins against top-40 teams in ESPN’s College Football Power Index (five) than the Irish (two).
Additionally, the teams had matching games against two bowl-eligible teams — at home against N.C. State and at Pittsburgh — among their four common opponents. The Hurricanes beat the Wolfpack and Panthers by a combined 65 points, more than the Irish’s combined 51-point margin in those games.
The other two common opponents were Syracuse and Stanford, which Notre Dame beat by a combined 92 points and Miami beat by a combined 63. So the combined margin for all four common opponents is 143 for the Irish and 128 for the Hurricanes.“I remain steadfast in my conviction, which has only grown stronger over the season — especially these last four weeks,” Phillips said of the Hurricanes. “The eye test, the stats, the results — they’ve earned a spot in the playoff.”
Those comparisons also have been a topic for Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich in social-media posts this week, with one noting: “Head-to-head not ‘a’ data point but ‘the’ data point!”
Phillips said he was “incredibly surprised and very disappointed” to see the Hurricanes didn’t rise after a 38-7 win against a Pitt team ranked 22nd in last week’s CFP rankings. But Phillips pointed to selection committee Chairman Hunter Yurachek saying no teams are locked into position, even if they’re not playing this week.
Phillips said the ACC has been in constant contact with the committee “and that’s going to continue up to the selections.”
“We know the final rankings aren’t until Sunday, so there’s time for course correction by the committee,” Phillips said. “The committee’s made it clear that idle teams can move up in the final rankings. And we’re going to continue our efforts, as there’s no question Miami’s a playoff team and they’ve earned a spot in the playoff.”
The Duke question
Virginia moved up a spot in Tuesday’s CFP rankings — “Pleased to see them move up, although I believe they should be higher,” Phillips said — to put them a win from the playoff.
A Duke win could make things dicier. But Phillips was ready to make that case, too, leaning largely on schedule strength.
The Blue Devils won the ACC tiebreaker with Miami, Georgia Tech, SMU and Pitt by virtue of its ACC opponents having the best combined winning percentage in conference play (.500).
Beating the Cavaliers would mark a seventh win against a Power Four opponent, while Duke’s five losses came to teams — including at Tulane — with a combined 46-14 record (.767).
By comparison, newly ranked James Madison lost its only game to a Power Four team (at ACC member Louisville), while only one of its wins came against a team with a winning record compared with Duke’s four.
The Blue Devils’ opponents have a combined 98-58 record (.628) compared with JMU’s opponents going 74-82 (.474), while ESPN ranks Duke’s strength of schedule 74th compared with JMU’s at 118th.
“The management committee has made it clear this offseason that strength of schedule must be prioritized,” Phillips said.
Duke coach Manny Diaz said Sunday the Blue Devils “absolutely” would deserve a CFP bid if they win the ACC title, pointing to strength of schedule and noting, “Records have a lot to do with schedules.”
On Wednesday, Diaz was asked whether he had a reaction to Tuesday’s latest CFP rankings. He was quick with a quip, responding: “They’ll release new ones on Sunday, right? Those are the only ones that count.”
“We have a chance to beat Virginia,” Diaz said. “It seems like that would be a really quality win. We know that’s really hard to do because we’ve played them in person and we know how good they are. That’s really all we’re worried about right now.
“But the Atlantic Coast Conference champion is going to be in the playoff. I feel very confident about that.”
