Virginia vs. Duke is an ACC title game like no other. Here are the 6 most absurd facts – The Athletic

The Atlantic Coast Conference boasts two members whose campuses are located on the Pacific Coast. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the conference has birthed one of the most absurd conference title games ever between Duke and No. 17 Virginia on Saturday night.

Last year, Clemson’s upset of SMU in the championship game gave the conference two bids in the 12-team College Football Playoff. If an upset happens this year, the league will likely be locked out of the Playoff completely.

James Madison debuted at No. 25 in the penultimate rankings from the CFP selection committee. Remember, the top five conference champions make the field, regardless of affiliation, and no Power 4 league is guaranteed a spot. That means if James Madison beats Troy to win the Sun Belt on Friday and Duke beats Virginia on Saturday, JMU would likely make the field ahead of the Blue Devils, who remain unranked. Thus, the American Conference and Sun Belt champions could both make the Playoff while the ACC champion does not.

If Virginia wins, it will have earned its Playoff spot, but it’s still a shocking outcome, given that the Cavaliers haven’t had a winning record since 2019.

It’s an absurd situation all around, and there are plenty more absurdities that led us to this moment.

1. Virginia actually has two ACC losses — but only one counted in the title race

Virginia, which is 10-2 overall, won the ACC’s regular-season championship outright at 7-1, ahead of a five-way tie in second place at 6-2. A convoluted tiebreaker structure sent Duke, which lost three nonconference games, to Charlotte to meet the Cavaliers.

TeamConferenceOverall

7-1

10-2

6-2

7-5

6-2

10-2

6-2

9-3

6-2

8-4

6-2

8-4

But Virginia’s official ACC record of 7-1 omits a 35-31 road loss to NC State back on Sept. 6. Why? That was a nonconference game.

Yes, you read that right.

When the ACC expanded to 17 teams, it kept its eight-game scheduling model. That meant the two old ACC rivals, who had played 60 times since 1904, weren’t scheduled to play an ACC game until 2027. So, they elected to play each other in a nonconference game instead to continue a series that had been played only five times since 2011.

They’re doing it again next year, too. In Week 1. In Brazil.

College football!

2. Duke can make history with one of the sport’s highest-paid quarterbacks

The Blue Devils’ season has felt disappointing at various points, especially after they won nine games in Manny Diaz’s first season in 2024. They added former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah after last season, signing him to a two-year deal that made him one of college football’s highest-paid quarterbacks at around $3 to $4 million per year.

Mensah has been solid, ranking 21st in the FBS in pass efficiency rating and throwing for 28 touchdowns with just four interceptions. But Duke is still 7-5.

And yet, Duke could win the ACC for the first time since 1989 and second time since 1962. It’s been an up-and-down season that could still end on a high paired with the disappointment of likely being left out of the 12-team Playoff.

3. The conference’s best team is locked out — and didn’t face either title game participant

Miami has been staring up at fellow two-loss team Notre Dame — who the Hurricanes beat in Week 1 — for the entirety of the CFP rankings. Miami is the committee’s highest-ranked ACC team at No. 12, five spots higher than Virginia. But it will be at home this weekend because it lost the ACC’s second-place tiebreaker, which doesn’t factor in the CFP rankings like some other leagues do.

Miami previously played Virginia and Duke annually in the ACC Coastal Division, but divisions have been eliminated and it didn’t get to face either in this superconference era that has led to wildly imbalanced conference schedules. The Hurricanes have been dominant down the stretch and might have been a double-digit favorite against both teams playing for the title Saturday night.

Miami will be idle this weekend instead of giving the league a chance to put its best team into the bracket. The Hurricanes ascended as high as No. 2 in the AP poll and spent most of the season in the top 10, but their losses to Louisville and SMU — two eight-win teams — helped put the ACC in an unenviable position.

Miami hasn’t been eliminated from CFP at-large contention, but it needs some help — perhaps from a BYU loss and the committee reconsidering the Canes’ win over Notre Dame.

4. This is a rematch no one was begging to see

Virginia and Duke played less than a month ago on Nov. 15. Virginia stomped a hole through the Blue Devils in Durham, leading 31-3 after three quarters on the way to a 34-17 win in which it won the yardage battle 540 to 255.

Three weeks later, we’re back to see it again, this time on a neutral field, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. The game is a tough sell for the ACC in many ways, and this is one of the most glaring reasons.

Duke is only a 4.5-point underdog, per BetMGM, but Virginia has won nine of the past 10 meetings.

5. At one point, Duke lost to UConn … and its CFP odds rose

A Duke chaos scenario was already discussed before the first Virginia game. Duke lost to UConn in Week 11 — its fourth defeat of the season — but thanks to losses by Louisville and Virginia, its chances of winning the ACC rose that week from 13 percent to 18 percent in Austin Mock’s projections.

At the time, a four-loss Duke team beating Virginia, winning the ACC title and opening the door for a second Group of 5 team started to seem possible. Then the Blue Devils took their fifth loss against the Cavaliers.

And yet, Duke still wasn’t done. The Blue Devils beat Bill Belichick and North Carolina in Week 13 to stay alive. Even still, when Rivalry Week arrived, the ACC needed one thing to happen to clinch a win-and-you’re-in title game: SMU had to beat Cal, which had just fired coach Justin Wilcox.

The Mustangs rallied from a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to take the lead, but Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele led Cal on a game-winning drive in the final minutes and SMU missed a 51-yard kick that could have sent the game into overtime.

Duke, which beat Wake Forest earlier in the day, benefited, bringing the ACC’s Playoff disaster scenario back to life.

6. The ACC is overshadowing a game between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams

No. 2 Indiana and No. 1 Ohio State are the nation’s only undefeated teams and have been on a crash course all season. They will finally meet with the Big Ten title at stake — something Indiana has not won since 1967. The game will decide the No. 1 seed in the Playoff and may also decide the Heisman Trophy, with Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin both prime contenders.

But it won’t decide whether either team will get to compete for a national title. And it’s likely that both teams will still earn first-round byes.

Meanwhile, the ACC will have a lot more to say about what the Playoff will look like, even if that’s to its own detriment.