ACC Announces Tiebreakers for Conference Football Title Game

Cal is one of 17 teams hoping to reach the ACC championship game on December 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, but if the Bears have a successful 2026 season they may have to consult the ACC tiebreaker procedure to see whether they will play in the conference title game.

It may sound farfetched to believe Cal could reach the ACC title game in its first season under Tosh Lupoi, but preseason projections don't know what to make of the Bears.

On Wednesday the ACC announced its procedure for settling tiebreakers to determine the two participants in the ACC football championship game, and we knew it would be complicated and important for two reasons:

1. Five ACC teams will play eight conference games in 2026, and the other 12 ACC teams will play nine conference games.

2. The ACC champion gets an automatic berth in the College Football Playoff in 2026. Duke won the ACC championship game last year, but was not invited to the College Football Playoff with its 7-5 overall record. Virginia, the other team in the ACC title game and the team with the best regular-season ACC record, did not get invited to the College Football Playoff either. Miami, which did not play in the ACC championship game, did received a berth in the CFP and reached the national championship game, losing to Indiana.

Cal does not face Miami or Louisville this season, and Miami and Louisville don't play each other, so, theoretically Cal, Miami and Louisville could all wind up with unbeaten ACC records. One of those teams would be left out of the conference title game.

A more likely scenario is if two or three teams at the top of the standings finish with one or two conference losses. In general a team that finished with a 7-1 ACC record would win a tiebreaker with a team owning a 7-2 conference mark, and a team with a 7-2 record would win a tiebreaker with a team that has a 6-2 mark, based on our interpretation of the ACC tiebreaker procedures.

Clearly not having all ACC teams play the same number of conference games can create controversies and complaints.

It's possible a participant in the title game will be determined by SportSource Analytics rankings. It's even possible that one of the championship game teams will be determined by pulling a name out of a hat.

Head-to-head results will still be the No. 1 way to break ties, but since so many ACC teams won't face each other, other methods are needed.

This season teams with the same number of conference wins or the same number of conference losses will be tied for the first or second position. But from there the team with the better winning percentage in conference games would get the nod. So, as noted above, a team that finishes with a 7-2 record would be tied with a team with a 7-1 record, but the 7-1 team would win the tiebreaker based on a better winning percentage.

And tiebreakers go on from there when needed as shown in the entire procedure spelled out after the comments by ACC commissioner Jim Phillips at ACC Kickoff media days on Wednesday:

"So we're going to stay -- head-to-head matters," Phillips said. "That's always most important. Then we will look at the grouping and how teams fared in the regular conference season.

"We talked a lot about it, used a lot of consultants, did 10,000 algorithms of different scenarios. It warranted that kind of time and commitment so that we can position ourselves to put those two best ACC teams forward.

"We'll continue to watch how this thing goes. But I feel incredibly strong that we have gotten to the right place with unanimity with our membership on what this new tiebreaking policy states."

This is how the ACC reported its tiebreaker procedure:

The ACC Tiebreaker Procedure

Add us as a preferred source on Google