12/06/25 11:12:00
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12/06 23:10 CST Fans of other schools rejoice at ACC title game as Duke win
increases CFP uncertainty
Fans of other schools rejoice at ACC title game as Duke win increases CFP
uncertainty
By AARON BEARD
AP Sports Writer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) --- It wasn't hard to spot Ben Overby and James Turner as
they weaved through the stands at Saturday night's Atlantic Coast Conference
championship game between No. 16 Virginia and Duke.
They were proudly wearing the purple of their alma mater, James Madison, which
could potentially make the College Football Playoff thanks to the Blue Devils'
victory.
"Nothing against UVA," Turner said excitedly, "but we're just here to support
Duke."
Consider it a product of this most unlikely of pairings to determine the ACC
title --- Duke won 27-20 in overtime for its first outright league crown since
1962 --- and the league's uncertain standing for bids to the 12-team CFP. And
that meant Saturday's game attracted its share of curious onlookers, eager to
see witness how it all might work out and how it might impact their favorite
team.
A validating two bids for the ACC? Just one? A "doomsday" scenario of getting
shut out of the playoff entirely? They were all seemingly in play. The only
certainty was a Virginia win would secure a CFP bid for a team that was picked
to finish 14th in the league in the preseason, leaving Miami to wait.
And now, after the five-loss Blue Devils claimed the first overtime
championship game in ACC history, everyone must wait for Sunday's unveiling of
the bracket to find out whether a Power Four champion really could miss the CFP
in favor of a second Group of Five winner in JMU.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips had argued this week that his league deserved two
bids: one for No. 12 Miami as the league's highest-ranked team, the other for
the Duke-Virginia winner as the league's champion.
Yet Duke, which won a five-way tiebreaker to play in the ACC title game,
entered Saturday unranked in the CFP selection committee's rankings. And JMU
sat at No. 25 before beating Troy for the Sun Belt Conference title in a 12-1
season a night earlier, raising the possibility that the Dukes might out-duke
Duke to earn the last of the automatic bids that go to the five highest-ranked
conference champions.
The tantalizing possibility had Overby buying tickets for the ACC title game
days before the Sun Belt finale, just in case the Dukes moved closer to history.
Turner waited until Friday night, once JMU asserted control against Troy.
"We won the SBC, check that off," said Overby, who like Turner is an accountant
living in Charlotte. "But to make it to the CFP as a Group of Five team, that
would be amazing."
They weren't the only fans in Charlotte closely watching and wondering what
might happen next for teams that weren't even on the field.
Shaun Harris stood out, too, from his front-row seat as he sported a custom
orange No. 10 jersey of his beloved Miami. The regional account manager for a
specialty pharmacy company has been buying tickets to the ACC title game for
years in hopes the Hurricanes would get back here, roughly 100 miles from his
Greenville, South Carolina, home.
Yet as he found himself sitting in a section filled with blue-clad Duke fans
--- "I'm literally sitting in the belly of the beast," he said --- Harris
couldn't stop thinking through the mistakes from the two losses that kept the
highly ranked Hurricanes out of this game.
Worse, those losses to Louisville and SMU could also keep Miami out of the CFP,
even with a head-to-head win against the Notre Dame team in direct competition
with the Hurricanes for a bid.
He held out hope that a Duke win might help the Hurricanes, with JMU getting
the fifth champion's bid and increasing the odds that the committee would
choose Miami to avoid leaving out the ACC altogether.
"It's self-inflicted, so we really shouldn't be in this situation," Harris
said, later adding: "You asked, I'm not optimistic."
___
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