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 league championship game between No. 16 Virginia and Duke.<\/p>\n
That comes with the ACC facing at least the chance of being squeezed out of the 12-team CFP entirely based on Tuesday night’s rankings.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Associated Press, Phillips was emphatic in making his case for the Hurricanes and then the league’s eventual champion. That comes after the ACC had a logjam of four 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 for Saturday night’s title game in Charlotte.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have conviction and confidence in our teams, starting with Miami,\u201d Phillips told the AP. \u201cThe second piece of that is the Virginia-Duke winner should absolutely be in this College Football Playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current scenario<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes (10-2) have closed strong as the league’s highest-ranked team in the AP Top 25 and CFP rankings, while the Cavaliers (10-2) finished as the lone 7-1 ACC team.<\/p>\n
Duke’s inclusion, triggered by then-ranked SMU losing at California last weekend, represents a potential chaos agent.<\/p>\n
Automatic CFP bids go to the five highest-ranked league champions. That theoretically accounts first for the \u201cPower Four\u201d champions from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC. Then would come the highest-ranked champ from a Group of Five league: the American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt conferences.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Miami running back Charmar Brown (6) celebrates with James Brockermeyer (52) after scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Pittsburgh, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Pittsburgh. Credit: AP\/Matt Freed<\/p>\n
In Tuesday’s CFP rankings, Miami is a bubble team for an at-large bid at No. 12 while the Cavaliers are 17th for a simple win-and-in scenario in Charlotte.<\/p>\n
But Duke (7-5) is unranked. Meanwhile, the American has both of its title-game teams (North Texas and Tulane) in the CFP rankings, putting that winner in line for a win-and-in ticket.<\/p>\n
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, could potentially give the Sun Belt the fifth champion’s spot and leave the ACC’s CFP hopes resting with the on-the-bubble Hurricanes.<\/p>\n
Phillips, who has previously been optimistic about landing multiple bids, knows the scenarios. He’s undeterred that the ACC deserves two bids all the same.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Duke head coach Manny Diaz reacts after a play during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Wake Forest in Durham, N.C., Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. Credit: AP\/Ben McKeown<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not naive,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I have conviction about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami’s case<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That result would seemingly 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 Fighting Irish (two) and a better record against AP-ranked teams at the time of the matchup (Miami at 4-0, Notre Dame at 2-2).<\/p>\n
Additionally, the teams had matching games against two bowl-eligible teams \u2014 home against N.C. State, at then-ranked Pittsburgh \u2014 among their four common opponents. The Hurricanes beat the Wolfpack and Panthers by a combined 65 points, more than the Irish’s 51 points in those games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remain steadfast in my conviction, which has only grown stronger over the season \u2014 especially these last four weeks,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThe eye test, the stats, the results \u2014 they’ve earned a spot in the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those comparisons have also been a topic for Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich in social-media posts this week, with one noting: \u201cHead-to-head not \u2018a\u2019 data point but \u2018the\u2019 data point!\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips said he was “incredibly surprised and very disappointed\u201d to see the Hurricanes didn’t rise after a 38-7 win against a Pitt team ranked 22nd in the CFP rankings last week. But Phillips pointed to selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek saying no teams are locked into position, even if they’re not playing this week.<\/p>\n
Phillips said the ACC has been in constant contact with the committee \u201cand that’s going to continue up to the selections.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the final rankings aren\u2019t until Sunday, so there\u2019s time for course correction by the committee,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThe committee’s made it clear that idle teams can move up in the final rankings. And we\u2019re going to continue our efforts, as there\u2019s no question Miami\u2019s a playoff team and they\u2019ve earned a spot in the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Duke question<\/p>\n
Virginia moved up a spot in Tuesday’s CFP rankings \u2014 \u201cPleased to see them move up, although I believe they should be higher,\u201d Phillips said \u2014 to put them a win from the playoff.<\/p>\n
A Duke win could make things dicier. But Phillips was ready to make that case, too, leaning largely on schedule strength.<\/p>\n
The Blue Devils won the ACC tiebreaker with the Hurricanes, Georgia Tech, SMU and Pitt by virtue of its ACC opponents having the best combined winning percentage in league play (.500).<\/p>\n
Beating the Cavaliers would mark a seventh win against a Power Four opponent, while Duke’s five losses came to teams \u2014 including at Tulane in the American \u2014 with a combined record of 46-14 (.767).<\/p>\n
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 to Duke’s four.<\/p>\n
The Blue Devils’ opponents have a combined 98-58 (.628) record compared to JMU’s going 74-82 (.474), while ESPN ranks Duke’s strength of schedule at 74th compared to JMU’s at 118th.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe management committee has made it clear this offseason that strength of schedule must be prioritized,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
Duke coach Manny Diaz believes the Blue Devils \u201cabsolutely\u201d would deserve a CFP bid if they win the ACC title, noting: \u201cRecords have a lot to do with schedules.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve spent time in the Sun Belt, I’ve coached in Conference USA, I’ve coached in those types of leagues,” Diaz said Sunday. \u201cI was very proud of what we did when I was in those leagues. But it’s not the same week in and week out of the teams you have to play against, the players you have to play against, and what we’ve had to compete against going through the ACC this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips is pushing for No. 12 Miami to earn a bid to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4403,143,123,125,124,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-69979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-college","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}