The ACC’s lone College Football Playoff representative, the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes, will face off against No. 2 Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl tonight to kick off the quarterfinals.
Before the final bracket was announced, there was a scenario where the ACC could have been left out of the 12-team field completely. But thanks to a first-round upset, the Canes now have the chance to earn the conference up to $20 million based on how far they can advance in the postseason.
How We Got Here
The ACC isn’t the only league with one team remaining in the CFP. The Big 12 also has only one representative: conference champion and No. 4–ranked program Texas Tech. But there was never a doubt that the Big 12 would have a program in the CFP—the ACC, on the other hand, was almost left out completely.
The CFP allows automatic bids for the top-five ranked conference champions, which were assumed to come from the four power conferences and the top-ranked Group of 6 conference.
But the ACC ended up with an unranked Duke program as the ACC conference champion, and, as a result, it was left out of the automatic qualifiers completely. Instead, the fourth and fifth AQs went to Group of 6 programs Tulane and JMU. No. 17 Virginia would have secured a spot if it had beaten Duke. (Indiana, Georgia, and Texas Tech earned AQs for the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12, respectively.)
The situation didn’t just kill the ACC’s opportunity to secure an automatic qualifier; it threatened the ACC’s ability to get a program into the 12-team field at all.
Going into conference championship weekend, Notre Dame was ranked No. 10, the Big 12’s BYU was ranked No. 11, and Miami was ranked No. 12. The assumption was that Notre Dame would take the final spot. But in one of the most controversial moves in CFP history, the selection committee flip-flopped and gave Miami the final at-large spot, ranking it above both BYU and Notre Dame.
The committee was vindicated, however, when the Canes upset No. 7 Texas A&M on the road in the first round.
A $20M Potential Payday
There’s plenty at stake for the ACC beyond just bragging rights—the CFP awards more than $100 million in prize payouts to conferences based on how well their teams fare.
The Canes have already earned $8 million for the ACC, and they have the opportunity to earn another $12 million.
For making it into the 12-team field, Miami earned $4 million for the ACC. Then, after advancing to the quarterfinals, the Canes earned another $4 million. If they upset Ohio State, they’ll take home an additional $6 million. Teams that advance to the national championship earn another $6 million.
The ACC also receives $3 million for each round the Canes advance to cover travel expenses.
New Year, New Rules
Next year, all power conferences will be guaranteed to have at least one team in the 12-team field due to a rule change regarding the automatic qualifiers.
Each power conference champion will be guaranteed an automatic qualifier, with the top-ranked Group of 6 conference champions receiving the fifth AQ slot. That would eliminate the possibility that an unranked power conference champion would lose out on a slot.
Notre Dame can rest easy, too. The Fighting Irish, who compete as independents in football and therefore don’t have a conference championship game to play in, are guaranteed a spot in the field if their overall ranking is in the top 12.
