As the 2025 college football regular season comes to a close, the Atlantic Coast Conference finds itself in a potentially catastrophic position: the possibility of being completely shut out of the 12-team playoff field.
Going into the season, Clemson and Miami were expected to be among the top teams in the ACC and the country, but the season has not gone as planned for either.
The Tigers, ranked No. 4 in the preseason poll, returned a veteran-led roster that many believed had a chance to be National Championship contenders.
Miami, meanwhile, brought in a transfer class headlined by quarterback Carson Beck and a revitalized defense. After being the first team out in last year’s playoff, the Hurricanes were looking to change their fate this season.
Reality hit hard for both squads, leaving the rest of the conference in shambles.
Clemson’s season fell short of expectations right from the start, opening with a loss to LSU in week one. They never recovered, stumbling to a 7-5 record and will finish unranked for the first time since 2010.
Miami looked to be the ACC’s best hope for much of the season. They started off hot three ranked wins over Notre Dame, South Florida and Florida State. Ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation, the Hurricanes’ season resembled last year after a November collapse left them on the outside looking in. Losses to Louisville and SMU dropped them out of ACC title contention and they now sit ranked at No. 12 with no control over their destiny.
Miami’s fate is now in the hands of the playoff committee, with their only sliver of hope coming from blowout loss by No. 11 BYU and praying their head-to-head victory over Notre Dame gets them the nod over the Fighting Irish.
Georgia Tech was another team that looked like it could represent the ACC this season after going 8-0 and reaching as high as No. 7 in the AP poll. However, a late season implosion saw them lose three of their last four games, dropping them out of the playoff conversation entirely.
Last week, SMU had an opportunity to reach the conference title game in their second straight year, but once again chaos prevailed. A nail-biting loss to Cal clinched Duke a spot in the ACC championship game against No. 17 Virginia.
Duke’s path to the title game was nothing short of a miracle. The Blue Devils suffered three non-conference losses to Illinois, Tulane and UConn, finishing the regular season 7-5. All that mattered, though, was that the tiebreaker happened to fall Duke’s way, and now a five-loss team is one win away from a conference title.
Virginia been the only source of consistency in the conference this year, defying their preseason expectations en route to a 10-2 campaign. The Cavaliers are a balanced squad, ranking No. 27 in points per game and No. 24 in opponent points per game. They are currently -2.5 favorites in the ACC championship and are closer than ever before to their first ever college football playoff appearance.
While a Virginia win would almost certainly make them a playoff lock, a Duke upset would almost assuredly lock the ACC out of the field. James Madison, Tulane and North Texas are all ranked in the CFP top 25, so the Sun Belt and American Athletic Conference would likely receive the fourth and fifth conference champion auto bids. This would be an unprecedented turn of events, with two Group of 5 teams crashing the playoff field while an entire power conference watches from home.
A Duke win on Saturday would have major ripple effects on the ACC and the sport as a whole. Not only would it be a serious blow to the conference’s revenue, but it may also signal an inevitable exodus from its biggest brands.
Earlier this year, Clemson and Florida State sued the ACC over its revenue sharing model and high exit costs, in which a settlement provided teams a path to leave by 2031. If the conference struggles persist as they have, schools may begin to force an exit even sooner as the ACC severely lags the other power conferences both competitively and financially.
With conference realignment already taking over college sports, this weekend could determine the next chapter of the ACC and the rest of the power conferences.