Can Virginia reach the College Football Playoff without an ACC title?

Virginia is aiming high in 2026. The Cavaliers want to hoist multiple trophies this year — one of which being the ACC Championship trophy. That will be a tough task.

As Tony Elliott has said on multiple occasions, sustaining success is always harder than simply finding success. The ACC will likely be much tougher than it was last year, especially when considering that Miami has assembled an all-star cast of future NFL players.

But is it possible for Virginia to reach the College Football Playoff without winning the ACC Championship? The answer is complicated.

The case studies — 2024 SMU and 2025 Miami

Since the CFP expanded to 12 teams in 2024, the ACC has received two at-large bids.

The first came in 2024, when SMU went 11-1 but lost the ACC Championship game against Clemson. The Mustangs’ lone loss in the regular season came against BYU. Overall, SMU finished atop the ACC standings with a perfect conference record — and wins against No. 18 Pitt and at No. 22 Louisville.

The 11-1 record and two ranked wins did a lot for the Mustangs’ resume. Their ACC schedule was extremely weak outside of Louisville and Pitt.

As for 2025 Miami, the body of work is much stronger. The Hurricanes went 10-2 and authored wins over No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 18 South Florida, No. 18 Florida State and No. 22 Pitt. Their victory over the Fighting Irish effectively served as the tiebreaker for the final at-large bid in the 12-team field.

Miami lost to Louisville and SMU by a combined nine points. The Hurricanes were hurt by the previous ACC tiebreaker system — which is how Duke ended up facing Virginia.

So, is it possible for Virginia to earn an at-large bid?

The Cavaliers cannot ostensibly be compared to the 2025 Miami team that faced several ranked teams and ended up finishing as the national runner-up. SMU is the only proper comparison at this juncture, and even then, Virginia is missing some key elements.

On the Cavaliers’ schedule, there is just one ranked team (coincidentally, it is the Mustangs). Virginia is going to need to go 11-1 with multiple ranked wins in order to receive a spot in the CFP.

Equally important as the 11 wins is which team the loss comes against. SMU’s only loss before the conference title game was against a BYU team which started the season with a 9-0 record. That is almost impossible for any of Virginia’s non-conference opponents (West Virginia, Delaware and Norfolk State).

Could the Cavaliers buck history?

There is one unlikely scenario — what if the Cavaliers go 12-0 during the regular season? If that happens, and they are competitive in the ACC Championship game, then it would be essentially impossible for the CFP committee to leave Virginia out of the field.

It will be difficult. The Cavaliers have never won 11 or more games in any regular season, and they are starting the season all the way down at No. 47 in the “received votes” section of the Preseason AP Poll.

Virginia’s schedule is not all that difficult — so if opponents cannot boost the Cavaliers’ resume, they will have to boost it themselves by winning.

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