ACC Championship: Most likely matchups as Miami falls, Georgia Tech stays perfect

A chaotic season in the ACC is setting up for a thrilling conference championship race, but for now the team in pole position is Georgia Tech after the Yellow Jackets improved to 7-0 overall and 4-0 in conference play with a 27-18 win at Duke on Saturday afternoon. Brent Key’s team is guaranteed to be the only team at 4-0 in league play after Week 8 and lead a handful of contenders to reach the ACC Championship Game by being one of the top two teams in the final conference standings. 

Georgia Tech being in the mix for an ACC title game appearance is not a huge break from preseason expectations, but the rest of the competition certainly does not fall in line with how experts viewed the conference coming into the year. An outlook of Clemson, Miami and Florida State has been displaced by the likes of Georgia Tech, Virginia and Louisville. The Cardinals made a move into the ACC title picture with an upset of Miami on Friday night that has left Week 8 being among the most significant turning points in the conference championship race. Louisville now has a head-to-head advantage over Miami, and given the imbalanced schedules across a 17-team league any win like that is crucial for all tiebreaker scenarios. 

Miami is, of course, not out of the mix at all. The Hurricanes may have suffered a disappointing home loss as a two-touchdown favorite but winning out in ACC play and getting some help from a team on Louisville’s schedule could very quickly flip what might be an uphill battle to get to Charlotte. And thankfully for Miami, at least when it comes to the College Football Playoff, the team has some quality nonconference wins against Notre Dame, South Florida and Florida that could be necessary to land an at-large bid if the team finds itself shut out of winning the conference. 

The picture can be expanded even more as SMU and Pittsburgh each have viable paths to making the top two by season’s end. Making matters even more complicated is that Georgia Tech, Virginia and Miami have zero crossover games between them to help decide tiebreakers.  

So who among the seven teams in the hunt have the best chance to make the ACC Championship Game and play for a spot in the College Football Playoff? We have ranked our top five most likely title game matchups below.

5. Louisville vs. Georgia Tech 

The primary path for the Cardinals seems to be for Virginia to lose two ACC games before the end of the season and for Louisville to win out in conference play. That would include a strong finish with games against Clemson at home and at SMU in back-to-back weeks to close the ACC schedule. But if Louisville finishes 7-1 in conference play and Virginia slips up a couple of times, that head-to-head win against Miami could put the Cardinals back in the ACC Championship Game for the second time in three years. Here we have Georgia Tech making it through, as the Yellow Jackets have the least amount of work left to finish with an 8-0 or 7-1 league record. 

4. Georgia Tech vs. SMU 

Don’t look now but SMU is still very much in the mix for the ACC title after dropping both of its nonconference games against the Big 12 (Baylor, SMU). The Mustangs were the runner-up in the conference last year after going 8-0 in the regular season and again have a path where Rhett Lashlee’s group gets to determine its own outcome. That’s because SMU gets both Miami and Louisville on its home turf in the second half of the season, and if the Mustangs win them both we will see another surge to the top of the standings. 

3. Miami vs. Virginia 

This is the scenario where Georgia Tech fumbles the bag, and drops at least one of its final four conference games while Miami wins out and Virginia and secures the right wins to also finish with an 8-0 or 7-1 conference record. For the Yellow Jackets to fall out of the picture they’d need to take at least one loss and likely two from a stretch that includes Syracuse (home), NC State (road), Boston College (road) and Pitt (home). It’s a team that’s been winning at the margins, especially on the road, so maybe there is some regression there with results and that’s what Miami is hoping for so that maybe the NC State game can become a common opponent tiebreaker win for the Canes.   

2. Georgia Tech vs. Virginia 

This is where Miami’s loss to Louisville could be doubly painful, because any tiebreakers with Virginia that come down to common opponents would break the Wahoos way because of their win against the Cardinals back in Week 6. Virginia has some tricky cross-country travel to navigate in coming weeks with a Chapel Hill-to-Berkley-to-Charlottesville run starting in Week 9, but if they get through that run, and a mid-November date at Duke, with only one loss then odds are very good the Wahoos can secure the tiebreakers needed to make the conference title game.   

1. Miami vs. Georgia Tech 

Another edition of of Mario Cristobal against Brent Key would make for a highly entertaining ACC Championship Game, and possibly the matchup that would give the ACC the highest probability to get both participants into the College Football Playoff. Of course Miami would need some help to jump ahead of Virginia in the standings, in addition to winning out its final six games of the ACC schedule. Miami will be favored in every game left on the schedule, but now the margin for error has lessened because another conference loss could bounce them from even winning tiebreakers at 6-2.