The drama surrounding Miami’s inclusion in the College Football Playoff and the subsequent exclusion of Notre Dame has prompted many to campaign for change in regards to the sport’s postseason format, but ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips suggested that altering his league’s tiebreaker system could be a needed step as well.
CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello reported from the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum and relayed Phillips’ take on how the ACC Championship Game should be settled in the future.
“Who knew that we would get to the seventh tiebreaker with five teams that were 6-2? It’s just the stars aligned in a way that nobody predicted, but no one should throw shade on Duke,” Phillips said, per CBS Sports. “They earned the right. Everybody had a chance to be part of that tiebreaker, and they played great. They won the league. They held the trophy. So I was super happy for Duke.”
Others weren’t. Duke’s 27-20 upset win over Virginia in the ACC title game was the catalyst to send both Tulane and James Madison to the CFP this season. Despite missing the league’s title game for the second consecutive year and spending several weeks behind Notre Dame in the selection committee’s rankings, Miami squeaked into the field as the ACC’s only team.
Miami was long viewed as the ACC’s best squad. But, just like last season, tiebreakers kept the Hurricanes from playing for the conference title.
Phillips suggested the league could use the CFP selection committee’s Top 25 as a tiebreaker in the future.
“It worked out the way it was supposed to work out relative to the tiebreaker we put in place, but we’ll come back together,” Phillips said, per CBS Sports. “It would be smart of us to now also have a CFP component maybe in there, in the tiebreaker.”
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
