As SMU and Clemson prepare for ACC title game in Charlotte, controversy surrounds CFP
The 20th ACC football championship game rolls into Charlotte on Saturday night with controversy riding shotgun in the passenger seat.
SMU faces Clemson in the 8 p.m. ACC title game at Bank of America Stadium, with a berth in the new 12-team field in the College Football Playoff going to the winner. But the SMU-Clemson winner may well end up as the league’s lone representative among the 12 teams in this expanded playoff, and that doesn’t sit well with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips.
“We were all incredibly surprised and disappointed about Miami,” Phillips said in a phone interview Wednesday.
The latest CFP rankings saw the Hurricanes drop six spots after a four-point loss to Syracuse on Saturday. That loss knocked Miami (10-2) out of the ACC title game, put Clemson in and also booted the Hurricanes out of the CFP in favor of Alabama (9-3). The CFP selection committee has said it won’t change the order of teams who don’t play this weekend and since neither Alabama nor Miami do, it means the Hurricanes are out (as is South Carolina) and the Crimson Tide — at No. 11 in the CFP, barely ahead of Miami — is likely in.
“I just think we need clarity,” Phillips said, “because we’re a little confused.”
It’s not that confusing, though: The CFP committee has once again found a way to kowtow to Alabama. Phillips wouldn’t say this when we talked, but I will: The committee that picks the playoff field just about always favors the SEC in general and Alabama in particular. Every year, it’s like the ghost of Bear Bryant emerges to silently steer the committee.
And often, it is the ACC that gets the short end of the yardstick.
In 2023, a one-loss Alabama team was selected for the final playoff spot in what was then a four-team field over an undefeated Florida State team.
Now a three-loss Alabama team has passed two-loss Miami in the rankings and, if SMU loses to Clemson, theoretically could knock SMU out of the CFP as well.
Phillips, again, believes there’s no way that could or should happen, no matter whether SMU wins or loses against Clemson on Saturday night before a crowd I’ve heard will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000.
“I don’t see any universe where SMU is not in,” Phillips said.
The No. 8 Mustangs, who only joined the ACC in July but went 11-1 overall and 8-0 in their first year of league competition, are a 2.5-point favorite over Clemson in Charlotte.
The Tigers (9-3 overall, 7-1 ACC), who lost by a field goal at home to their bitter rival South Carolina on Saturday and subsequently dropped to No. 17, have to win to get into the CFP. Otherwise, Clemson is headed for a lesser bowl game.
But the Tigers are the veterans of this title game, making a league-high 10th appearance in the ACC football championship since the game’s inception in 2005. (Clemson is 8-1 in ACC championship games).
If SMU wins in Charlotte, the Mustangs will almost certainly get a first-round bye and advance to the CFP’s round of 8 (the 12-team field will be announced Sunday).
If Clemson wins, it’s unclear whether the Tigers will get a top-4 seed and a first-round playoff bye or be seeded No. 12 and have to travel on the road to the No. 5 seed for the first round.
In that scenario, Phillips insisted: “Clemson would deserve to be one of the four highest-ranked conference champions. Their résumé is demonstrably better than Arizona State, Iowa State, Boise State and UNLV, which would be the competition.”
Phillips, of course, is paid to be the ACC’s champion. The league moved its headquarters from Greensboro to Charlotte in 2023, and the Queen City has already seen some direct benefits from that relationship.
For instance, the ACC men’s basketball tournament hasn’t been played in Charlotte since 2019. But it’s about to be here in three of the next four years — in 2025, 2026 and 2028, bringing a substantial economic impact. The ACC football title game was already under a long-standing contract and is guaranteed to be played in Bank of America Stadium through the 2030 season.
This year’s championship game is unusual, with SMU having gotten to the ACC party about 10 minutes ago and Clemson’s strange last Saturday — a devastating loss to South Carolina, followed by Syracuse’s upset win over Miami that put the Tigers back in Charlotte.
So now on Saturday we’ve got Clemson, SMU…. and a whole lot of controversy, no matter how it all turns out. In other words, it should be fun.
