Hurricanes miss out on ACC Championship Game. Here’s who will play for ACC title
If the Miami Hurricanes are going to qualify for the College Football Playoff, it will be through an at-large bid.
The 12th-ranked Hurricanes did not make the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game, finishing third overall in the 17-team conference once the dust settled on Saturday despite being the highest-ranked team in the conference in the eyes of the CFP selection committee.
No. 18 Virginia (10-2, 7-1 ACC) and Duke (7-5, 6-2 ACC) will meet in Charlotte on Dec. 6 for the ACC title. The top five highest-ranked conference champions receive automatic berths into the 12-team playoff field.
(So, yes, if five-loss Duke wins the ACC title, there’s no guarantee that the ACC champion makes the playoff field if the committee decides that multiple non Power 4 conference champions are more worthy.)
How the Miami Hurricanes missed out on the ACC Championship Game
The Hurricanes (10-2, 6-2 ACC) entered the final week of the regular season needing help if they wanted to make the ACC Championship Game for just the second time in school history. Two losses — a 24-21 home defeat against Louisville and a 26-20 overtime loss at SMU — in a span of three weeks put Miami in this position.
UM did its part to rally back into consideration by winning its final four games in convincing fashion — 38-10 over Syracuse, 41-7 over NC State, 34-17 over Virginia Tech and then 38-7 over No. 22 Pittsburgh on Saturday — to creep back into the conference race.
But the Hurricanes needed several other conference games to play out in their favor in order to backdoor their way into a trip to Charlotte.
They got almost none of it on Saturday.
Virginia beat Virginia Tech 27-7 to secure the top spot in the conference with a 7-1 record in league play.
A Duke 49-32 win over Wake Forest and a Cal 38-35 upset win over No. 21 SMU resulted in a five-way tie for second place, with Duke, Miami, Georgia Tech, SMU and Pitt all going 6-2 in ACC action.
Because none of the teams had a common opponent in league play, the deciding tiebreaker to determine Virginia’s opponent was conference opponent win percentage — basically, which of the five teams had the toughest ACC schedule.
That team was the Blue Devils, whose conference opponents had a .500 win percentage in league play.
Miami and Georgia Tech were then tied for third with a conference opponent win percentage of .4375. The Hurricanes had the edge over the Yellow Jackets for third because Miami went 4-0 against the group of common opponents it and Georgia Tech had — Virginia Tech, Syracuse, NC State and Pitt — while GT went 2-2 in those four games.
SMU was fifth and Pitt was sixth. Both had equal conference opponent win percentages (.4219) but SMU had a 5-0 record against common opponents, while Pitt went 3-2 in those five games.
Final ACC standings
Virginia (10-2, 7-1 ACC)
Duke (7-5, 6-2 ACC)
Miami (10-2, 6-2 ACC)
Georgia Tech (9-3, 6-2 ACC)
SMU (9-3, 7-1 ACC OR 8-4, 6-2 ACC)
Pittsburgh (8-4, 6-2 ACC)
Louisville (8-4, 4-4 ACC)
Wake Forest (8-4, 4-4 ACC)
NC State (7-5, 4-4 ACC)
California (7-5, 4-4 ACC)
Clemson (7-5, 4-4 ACC)
Stanford (4-7, 3-5 ACC)
Florida State (5-7, 2-6 ACC)
Virginia Tech (3-9, 2-6 ACC)
North Carolina (4-8, 2-6 ACC)
Boston College (2-10, 1-7 ACC)
Syracuse (3-9, 1-7 ACC)
This story was originally published November 29, 2025 at 11:39 PM.
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