{"id":286595,"date":"2025-11-12T03:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T03:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286595\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T03:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T03:53:09","slug":"josh-pate-outlines-doomsday-scenario-for-acc-in-college-football-playoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286595\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Pate outlines ‘doomsday’ scenario for ACC in College Football Playoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second edition of the 2025 College Football Playoff rankings<\/a> were released on Tuesday night. And after a topsy-turvy week in the ACC it\u2019s becoming clear that a potential disaster scenario exists for the league.<\/p>\n

College football analyst Josh Pate was quick to point out the potential problem for the ACC on his show, Josh Pate\u2019s College Football Show<\/a>, on Tuesday night. It requires a significant setup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a world where the ACC misses the playoff, which was once thought to be impossible,\u201d Pate said. \u201cBut that was a whole different world. That was like three weeks ago. Now it\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

How, you might be wondering? Well, the college football analyst dove into the exact particulars.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s what needs to happen: Duke<\/a> wins the ACC,\u201d Pate said. \u201cThat\u2019s really what needs to happen, and then a couple of these (other) teams fall. Here is the concern: Miami<\/a> is the highest-ranked ACC team. They\u2019re not going to play for the conference title. Their best shot is to be an at-large team, which I think they have some possibility for, and I\u2019ll talk about that later. Then you\u2019ve got Georgia Tech<\/a> at 16, I think they could go and play for the conference title, so let\u2019s just bookmark them. Virginia<\/a>, they\u2019re limping right now. Louisville<\/a>, they\u2019re limping right now. Pitt<\/a>\u2018s at 22. They play Notre Dame<\/a> this weekend. Also some of these teams play each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo let me just paint a picture for you, because I know you\u2019re thinking in your head, \u2018He\u2019s crazy. The ACC champ is guaranteed a spot in the playoff.\u2019 No they\u2019re not. It\u2019s just that 99% of the time, all of the Power Four conference champs would lock down spots in the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might not be the case this year, though. There\u2019s a world where multiple Group of Six conference champions finish the season ranked ahead of the ACC champion. It\u2019s particularly possible if Duke wins the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the rule,\u201d Pate said. \u201cThe rule is there are five automatic spots given to the five highest-ranked FBS conference champs. Now it was thought when they constructed the playoff, we don\u2019t need to say \u2018the highest-ranked Power Four champs,\u2019 it just goes without saying conference champs in Power Four leagues are always going to trump conference champs from G5 leagues. That\u2019s just always going to happen. Yeah, we thought so. Here\u2019s the problem: Maybe not.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does the rest of the scenario play out? Well, it requires teams like Georgia Tech and Miami not being ranked high enough to push for an at-large spot. That\u2019s no given.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuke is 8-4, or could be 8-4,\u201d Pate said. \u201cThey\u2019re 5-4 right now. They\u2019ve got three more games. Only one of their losses is a conference loss. So they have to play Virginia, North Carolina<\/a> and Wake Forest<\/a> their final three games. Looks like all three of those games are at home, by the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuke could go to Charlotte to play for a conference title at 8-4. As of this moment it looks like Georgia Tech is their most likely opponent. What if they go and they do that, and they play Georgia Tech in Charlotte and they beat Georgia Tech? Georgia Tech\u2019s going to be out, they\u2019re not going to be an at-large. Would Duke, here\u2019s the question, be one of the five highest-ranked conference champs? I don\u2019t know that they would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pate laid out the scenario where multiple Group of Six conference champs remain ahead of Duke. It\u2019s not an unthinkable possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly don\u2019t think that they\u2019ll be ahead of USF<\/a>, let\u2019s say, if USF wins the American,\u201d Pate said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know that they\u2019d be ahead of James Madison<\/a> if James Madison wins the Sun Belt. And once we swallow that harsh potential reality, we ask, \u2018OK, well what is the ACC\u2019s best shot to get a team in?\u2019 It would probably be Miami, which brings me to my next point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miami can prevent the ACC doomsday scenario, according to Pate. That\u2019s the luxury of playing a strong non-conference schedule which has propped things up a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami\u2019s got some oxygen, but I don\u2019t know if you were listening,\u201d Pate said. \u201cI was listening to the playoff committee chair talk on the broadcast, and they were asking him, \u2018Hey, how do you perceive the ACC?\u2019 And he sort of showed the committee\u2019s hand a little bit, he said, \u2018Outside of Miami, this league has no good out-of-conference wins to hang its hat on.\u2019 So it\u2019s up to you, Miami, is what I\u2019m saying. It\u2019s up to Miami. Miami has some oxygen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second edition of the 2025 College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night. And after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-286595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}