Will the committee give the fifth and final conference champion automatic qualifying spot to the ACC champion Duke Blue Devils, or will it send the Sun Belt champs and No. 25 James Madison Dukes to the CFP?
JMU (12-1) defeated Troy 31-14 on Friday night to cap a dominant run through the Sun Belt. Duke (8-5) won its first ACC crown since 1989 with a dramatic 27-20 overtime victory over Virginia, the first OT title game in ACC history. The fact that James Madison was ranked last week ahead of the conference championship and Duke was not suggests JMU has the inside track, and we’ll actually get two Group of 5 teams in the 12-team field, with the ACC (probably) on the outside looking in.
What we don’t know is how the committee viewed Duke in last week’s rankings, and whether a conference championship win over No. 17 Virginia is enough for the Blue Devils to jump JMU on Sunday. Duke will harp on the strength of schedule argument — 60th compared to 124th, according to The Athletic’s Austin Mock — and the fact that it has seven power-conference wins compared to zero for JMU. But the Blue Devils having five losses is tough to overlook, including defeats at Tulane and at UConn.