Proposed ACC Title Game Changes Could Have Major Impact on Clemson

The Clemson Tigers regained their place at the top of the ACC with another conference title.

Detractors of the program routinely pointed to them missing the championship game in 2023 alongside their College Football Playoff drought as evidence they were no longer a national power, however, Dabo Swinney was able to get them back into contention this year even if that resulted in a first found loss to Texas.

As schools and conferences adjust to the new 12-team playoff landscape, tons of alterations are being throw around when it comes to the format of the CFP and how championship weekend will operate going forward.

For the ACC, there was a chance they would have only gotten one team in this past year if SMU had gotten blown out by Clemson in the title game, something that many fans and analysts rightly stated would have been unfair.

The current rules state the winners of Power 4 title games get automatic berths into the playoff, which was the reason why this three-loss Clemson team was able to get in. And no matter what happens in the coming years, rewarding the champions with a spot in the 12-team field likely doesn't change.

But, that is also prompting leaders of these conferences to take a step back and reassess who gets into these games.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips posed an interesting idea about how they could operate going forward, something that would have a major impact on Clemson.

"The conference championship games are important, as long as we make them important, right? Do you play two versus three? You go through the regular season and whoever wins the regular season, just park them to the side, and then you play the second-place team versus the third-place team in your championship game. So, you have a regular-season champion, and then you have a conference tournament or postseason champion," he said per Andrea Adelson of ESPN.

That would be a way to make sure what almost happened to SMU doesn't happen again.

With the winner of the ACC regular season sitting out championship weekend, that would be a weird thing to see, but it would also virtually guarantee the conference would get two teams in with the title game winner and regular season champ.

That's, of course, if the automatic berths are still given out.

If Clemson is able to regain their stranglehold over the conference like they had in the 2010s, then they would have a good shot to make the CFP every year either as the dominant regular season champion or as the winner of the title game.

It also gives them another pathway to competing for a national championship if they have a tough regular season but still finish third, giving themselves a one-game shot to win the ACC.

Changes to the sport are coming, and this hypothetical by one of the Power 4 commissioners certainly highlights that.