these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Nov 19, 2024, 3:04 PM

source: https://theacc.com/documents/2023/5/17/ACC_FOOTBALL_TIEBREAKER_POLICY.pdf

This gets pretty complicated. I spent more time than I care to admit nerding out on all the paths and numbers (but I actually enjoyed it), and I think I got most of it mapped out. And what's fascinating is that I think there are some major paths that exist here that I haven't seen anyone talking about and I don't think people realize.

Let's start with the obvious info. Only 3 teams still have a shot to make the ACC title game: SMU (6-0), Miami (5-1), and Clemson (7-1). Clemson has already played all 8 of their conference games; SMU and Miami each have 2 left to play. This brings us to the first 2 and most simple scenarios for the Tigers to make the conference final: *remember that these are all conference records, noncon games don't matter here

1. Miami loses to either Wake or Syracuse. | Clemson finished ACC play with 1 loss. Miami currently has 1 loss. That means if Miami loses another ACC game, they'll finish behind Clemson and the Tigers will be going to Charlotte. It's that simple.
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2. SMU loses to both Virginia and Cal. | That would put SMU at 2 losses, behind Clemson, and Clemson would finish no worse than 2nd in the ACC.
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now it starts to get more complicated

3. SMU loses to either Virginia or Cal, but not both, meaning Clemson, Miami, and SMU all finish tied at 7-1. Clemson's ACC opponents finish with a higher combined conference winning % than either SMU's or Miami's ACC opponents do.

This is the big part I think people aren't considering. There is a separate tiebreaker used for 3-way ties. Here is the exact language from the document:

"Three (or More) Team Tie
Three team (or more) tiebreaker procedure will first be used to identify one Championship Game
representative. Once that team is determined, the tiebreaker procedures restart for the remaining tied
teams."

That will be important later.

Going down the list of steps in the 3-team tie procedures, the first 2 aren't applicable because none of the 3 tied teams actually played each other. So that brings us to option 3: win % vs all common opponents.

The only common opponents between all 3 teams are Florida State and Louisville. I think this is where everyone has assumed that Clemson would be eliminated because of the Louisville loss. But I want you to go back to the language I quoted above:

"Three team (or more) tiebreaker procedure will first be used to identify one Championship Game
representative. Once that team is determined, the tiebreaker procedures restart for the remaining tied
teams."

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but to me, that statement clearly indicates that the 3-team tiebreaker is NOT to be used to eliminate 1 of the teams. Rather, it is to be used to select 1 of the 3 teams first to be the higher seed in the championship game. Then, the tiebreaker process restarts for the 2 remaining teams. The interpretation of that clause changes everything here.

All 3 teams beat FSU, and Clemson was the only one of the 3 to lose to Louisville. So Clemson obviously wouldn't be the winner here. But the issue then is that there's no way to separate Miami and SMU, so you have to go to the next step.

Option 4 involves going through win % for the common opponents 1 by 1 based on order of finish. But again, that still doesn't help us here because SMU and Miami both beat Louisville and FSU, so there's still no means of separation here yet.

That takes us to option 5: combined win % of conference opponents. Now here are the big questions I have that aren't made explicitly clear in the document. Do they mean win % just for conference games? I'm going to assume the answer is yes, because all of the other info used in these tiebreakers is based exclusively on results from within ACC play, and that's typically the procedure for tiebreakers within a conference. But I can't say that for certain, and that could make a difference.

Secondly, and most critically, would Clemson still be considered a legitimate option to win the 3-team tiebreaker, or would they be relegated straight to the 2nd tiebreaker against whichever of the other 2 teams doesn't get picked first because of the Louisville loss? This is where it gets difficult to understand, and these specifics could matter a great deal. However, there is no specific language in steps 3 or 4 to indicate that a single team should be eliminated for finishing last while the other 2 are still tied, and the opening statement actually seems to say that that's NOT how it's supposed to work. So again, I can't be sure, but for this path, I'm operating under the assumption that Clemson could still win the 3-team tiebreaker.

Now, given that every team in the ACC plays the same number of games (8), by the end of the season, they should all carry an equal weight in terms of winnning %. Therefore, the simplest way I found to look at this was just counting the number of total ACC wins by each team's conference opponents. Again, because they all play the same total amount of games, this is essentially no different from looking at the percentage from a mathematical standpoint.

Here are the numbers, accounting for all games that have already been played, and for future games where a team's conference opponents play against each other, so you already know that those games will have a neutral result on the strength of schedule regardless of which team wins. I also subtracted self-losses which would negate the tiebreaker to begin with.

Miami's ACC opponents will finish the season with at least 24 conference wins, with a maximum potential of 29. Clemson's ACC opponents will finish the season with at least 22 conference wins, with a maximum potential of 30. SMU's ACC opponents will finish the season with at least 22 conference wins, with a maximum potential of 27. So as you can see, the order of finish here is still completely up in the air. And whichever team finishes with the highest number would be the first one selected to the ACCCG in this scenario. So if it were Clemson, that would be them.
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4. SMU loses to Virginia, meaning Clemson, Miami, and SMU all finish tied at 7-1. Miami's ACC opponents finish with the highest combined conference winning %, meaning they go to the ACCCG, and SMU and Clemson then go to a 2nd tiebreaker. Virginia beats Virginia Tech. Pitt beats Louisville.

I'll explain. If Clemson DOESN'T finish 1st in opponent win % in the 3-team tiebreaker, it becomes essential that Miami does. The reason for this is that if Miami were to go to a head to head tiebreaker with Clemson, Miami would win on common opponents because of the Louisville loss, game over.

However, Clemson actually could win a head-to-head tiebreaker with SMU, but here's what would have to happen: SMU would have to lose to Virginia, which would tie SMU and Clemson in record vs common opponents at 5-1. (It's worth noting, an SMU loss to Cal by itself does nothing to help Clemson because Cal is not a common opponent, meaning that SMU would win the tiebreaker.) Then it would go to common opponents ranked by finish, so what would have to happen next is for Virginia to finish higher than Louisville, which is why it would be necessary for UVA to beat VT and for Louisville to lose to Pitt. (Remember that Louisville beat UVA head to head, so if they finish tied in the standings, the tiebreaker would go to Louisville, and SMU would win the tiebreaker over Clemson.
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And that's basically it. Easy, right? lol. And if anybody has more information about some of the questions I wasn't sure about, or if I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me. I just thought it would be fun and perhaps helpful to lay this whole thing out, but I also don't want to spread incorrect info.

Lastly, I'll list out the upcoming games that make a difference for the opponent strength of schedule thing:

What would help Clemson:
if NC State beats Georgia Tech
if NC State beats North Carolina
if Stanford beats Cal
if Wake Forest beats Duke
if Virginia Tech beats Duke
if Pitt beats Boston College
(Virginia beating SMU and Wake Forest beating Miami are technically on this list as well, but those ought to be obvious)

what would help Miami:
if Virginia Tech beats Virginia
if Cal beats Stanford
if Cal beats SMU
if Georgia Tech beats NC State
if Louisville beats Pitt

what would help SMU:
if Duke beats Virginia Tech
if Duke beats Wake Forest
if Boston College beats North Carolina
if Virginia beats Virginia Tech
(SMU losing 1 game to Virginia or Cal would also help their opponent win %, though I don't know if you could really call that "help" lol)

Again, the motives get a little weird here because we want Clemson to finish with the highest opponent win %, but as I already explained, we also want Miami to finish with the highest opponent win % in the event that Clemson doesn't in order to avoid facing them in a 1v1 tiebreaker.

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Bravesfan102925® BigCUFan® Yes, mostly. To try to really boil it down:

1. Advance via superior record (1 Miami loss OR 2 SMU losses)

2. Advance via 2-way tiebreaker (SMU loss to UVA AND UVA win over VT AND Louisville loss to Pitt)

Clemson would lose a 2-way tiebreaker against 1-loss Miami and against 1-loss SMU IF SMU's 1 loss were to Cal and not to UVA

My main point was that the 3-way tie scenario could turn this whole thing on its head if I'm interpreting the rules correctly:

3. Advance via 3-way tiebreaker ((SMU loss to UVA OR SMU loss to Cal) AND Clemson ACC opponents finishing with more conf. wins than SMU's & Miami's ACC opponents

and I believe in order to GET to situation #2, Miami would have to win the 3-way tie via conf. opponents' wins, leaving SMU and Clemson to restart the tiebreaker

these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Re: these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Re: these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Re: these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Let me simplify it for you...

And this is why conferences went to divisions...

Re: these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

Re: these tiebreaker scenarios are fascinating

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