Duke just won a tremendous ACC title. But Blue Devils don’t deserve a CFP berth
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke won the ACC title in OT over UVa, but its 8–5 record undercuts CFP qualification.
- Miami (10-2) offers a stronger CFP case than any other ACC team, but wasn’t in title game.
- The ACC risks losing out on the 12-team CFP entirely, which would be an embarrassment.
After watching an excellent ACC championship game in Charlotte Saturday night, I firmly believe this: Neither one of those teams is worthy of a spot in this year’s College Football Playoff.
Duke upset Virginia, 27-20, in overtime at Bank of America Stadium and won its first ACC title since 1989 (when it was co-champion under coach Steve Spurrier). That’s extremely laudable, as was the way Duke played in overtime. Duke deserves every bit of Saturday night’s celebration, which was a wild one.
However, Duke is also 8-5, with losses to UConn, Tulane and Illinois among its five defeats. As memorable as Saturday night in Charlotte was for the Blue Devils, this is not a team that should make the CFP.
A high-level bowl game? Absolutely.
The CFP? No.
We’ll know around noon on Sunday, when the 12-team playoff field is announced. Duke is expected to either edge its way in at the last minute or lose out to James Madison, a Group of Five team that was ranked No. 25 in the CFP rankings Tuesday.
Duke was unranked in the CFP before this win over No. 17 Virginia (now 10-3). If the Blue Devils don’t qualify, two Group of Five teams will make the field for the first time, with Tulane (more or less a sure thing) joining James Madison.
In my opinion, the team that should represent the ACC in the CFP wasn’t even playing Saturday night. That would be Miami (10-2), the ACC’s best team and certainly its highest-ranked in the most recent CFP rankings at No. 12. If Miami had played in the championship game Saturday night, I think the Hurricanes would have beaten either Virginia or Duke. If the CFP does the right thing, Miami will get an at-large bid Sunday.
Duke, of course, campaigned to earn a CFP spot after the game. As it should.
“I always thought the weekly polls were kind of a farce,” Duke coach Manny Diaz said early Sunday morning, as the clock ticked past midnight. “Now the full information is available... Compare us to James Madison for example.... Their schedule strength is in the 100s. Ours is somewhere in the 50s.... Seven wins in our conference. Seven Power 4 wins (for Duke), as opposed to zero Power 4 wins (for James Madison).... The ACC conference champion should go to the College Football Playoff this year and every year, and we’ll be very excited to find out how they rule on that.”
The game was played before one of the smaller crowds in ACC championship game history. The announced attendance was 41,672. There were 30,000 empty seats, and tarps covered significant portions of the upper deck end zones. The fans who came bundled up through a cold evening, although there were nevertheless a good number of students from both sides watching and screaming with their shirts off. The temperature when the game began: 39 degrees, which was the lowest at kickoff in the ACC title game’s 21-year history.
The fact Duke was even playing in this game at all was an upset in its own right. Virginia finished in first place in the regular season at 7-1. Duke was in a five-way tie for second at 6-2. All four of the other five second-place teams had better overall records than Duke, but the Blue Devils got the spot due to the ACC’s convoluted tiebreaker system.
Anyway, Duke punched a ticket to Charlotte and Miami didn’t. But now the order may well be — and really should be — reversed in the CFP. It’s also possible the ACC won’t get a team in the CFP at all, which would be an embarrassment for the Power Four league based in Charlotte.
The Hurricanes have a good enough resume to get an at-large berth, but to do so would probably have to surpass Notre Dame (which Miami beat early in the season) or else Alabama (badly outmatched in a 28-7 loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game Saturday).
Duke showed right away this would be a far different game than the one that the two teams played Nov. 15, when Virginia led Duke 31-3 after three quarters and ended up winning comfortably, 34-17.
This time Duke took the opening kickoff and spun out the longest touchdown drive in ACC history, a march that took 9 minutes and 38 seconds and ended only when quarterback Darian Mensah hit tight end Jeremiah Halsey for a 12-yard touchdown.
Virginia came back to tie the score after freshman Corey Costner intercepted Mensah and the Cavaliers capitalized with an 11-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Chandler Morris to J’mari Taylor. Duke, though, took a 14-7 lead into halftime on the strength of a 16-yard TD run by Nate Sheppard, which was set up when Duke converted a fake punt to keep the ball. Duke was 4-for-4 on fourth down in the game, and those successful gambles from Diaz were key to the victory.
After the teams traded field goals in the third quarter, Duke took a 20-10 lead in the fourth before Virginia made a furious comeback, scoring 10 points in the final 3:54 to send the game to OT.
Duke got the ball first and went for a fourth-and-goal at the 1 after failing to score from the 1 on three previous attempts. The gutsiness paid off again, as Mensah made a sweet play on the run and hit Halsey again for a TD.
Virginia was penalized 15 yards for roughing the passer and started its OT possession on its own 40. On its first play, it attempted some trickery, where Morris pitched the ball out, got it back on a crossfield lateral and attempted a sideline pass against tight coverage. The ball was intercepted by Duke’s Luke Mergott, and bedlam enveloped the Duke sideline.
All of that was well and very good for Duke. But let’s face the facts. Virginia would have made the CFP field if it won; it will now go to a high-level bowl game elsewhere.
Duke’s odds were never good, even with a win Saturday night, and that’s understandable. As currently constructed, a five-loss team from the ACC doesn’t belong in the CFP.
You can’t take this championship away from the Blue Devils, though. For Duke, that was some night.
This story was originally published December 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
