115: 🏈 ACC tiebreakers

A look at ACC football tiebreakers and standings through Week 9.

Four ACC teams remain unbeaten in conference play as we head into the final month of the season. Pittsburgh, Clemson, Miami, and SMU are a combined 16-0 in conference play.

Conference schedules are unbalanced because the ACC is now a league that sprawls coast to coast with 17 full-time members and the conference only plays eight league games. An unbalanced schedule with no divisions can create an entanglement in the league standings.

In this case, three of the four unbeaten teams do not play each other this season. There is a scenario where Miami, Clemson, and SMU all could finish a pristine 8-0 in ACC play.

In this scenario, which teams will play in Charlotte for the ACC Championship?

Take a look at the tiebreaker rules provided by David Hale¹ or read through Barry Jackson’s breakdown for the Miami Herald.

In a hypothetical three team tie of undefeated teams, the first four tiebreaker conditions do not apply because Miami, Clemson, and SMU would all be undefeated.

• Combined head-to-head win-percentage among the tied teams if all tied teams are common opponents.

• If all the tied teams are not common opponents, the tied team that defeated each of the other tied teams.

• Win-percentage versus all common opponents.

• Win-percentage versus common opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win-percentage, with ties broken) and proceeding through other common opponents based upon their order of finish.

This brings us to the fifth tiebreaker:

• Combined winning percentage of conference opponents. This is in conference games only and it excludes non-conference games.

Below are the current ACC standings through games from this past weekend. The table includes the current combined winning percentage of opponents and point differentials too.

As of today, Clemson (.432) and Miami (.421) have the highest combined winning percentage of conference opponents². SMU’s league schedule is weak. The combined winning percentage of SMU’s league opponents is .351, the worst among all ACC teams.

While Pittsburgh is 3-0 in league play, the Panthers play at SMU this weekend and host Clemson on November 16. As a superweapon³, Pitt can end the tie breaking shenanigans by sweeping both teams, splitting the results, or losing to both teams too.

There is a good chance that these tiebreakers won’t matter. It does sort of feel like reading the entire board game instructions before you actually try to play the game.

These tiebreakers shine a spotlight on how uneven the schedules have become in league play. If the league includes 17 teams, why do we fill a third of the schedule⁴ with teams outside the conference?

Whatever your preference for tiebreaker rules, this ACC standings table offers a different perspective about team performance, so far.

North Carolina, sitting at 1-3, has a better point differential (+9) than 3-2 Louisville (-6). The Cardinals have faced a tougher conference schedule.

Virginia’s remaining three league opponents (Pittsburgh, SMU, Virginia Tech) have won ~91% of their league games so far. The Wahoos also travel to South Bend to play Notre Dame in three weeks, good luck UVA!

And speaking of Notre Dame, (you will notice them at the bottom of the ACC standings table), the Irish play five ACC opponents in their current scheduling agreement with the league.

Notre Dame has beat its first three ACC opponents by a combined 67 points. The Irish play Virginia and Florida State to conclude its ACC slate. The Irish’s five league opponents post a combined winning percentage of .357 or the second worst among all teams.

In a season where Notre Dame likely needs some luck to overcome its loss to Northern Illinois, the Irish are receiving it in the form of a squishy ACC schedule. Of course, Notre Dame still has tough remaining games against Army and USC that will probably decide its playoff fate.

What’s next?

These standings will make more sense as the season continues this weekend. There are 12 ACC teams playing this weekend and all play against a league opponent.

Saturday could deliver some fun⁵ given the top teams are in action. What if . . .

• Manny Diaz finds revenge and Duke beats Miami?

• Louisville finds a way to upset Clemson?

• Pitt doesn’t need three pick sixes and wins at SMU?

After this weekend, the selection committee’s first playoff rankings debut on Tuesday, November 5⁶. These rankings will provide yet another data point that could be used in hypothetical tiebreaker scenarios too.

Anyhow, enjoy the football this weekend.

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Recommendations

Three for this week:

• bball.notnothing.net: included in the footnotes, this site does an unreal job of laying out different conference tiebreaker scenarios for football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball.

• evollve.net: plugged this one before, but the site is super useful for college volleyball. UNC beat Florida State 34-32 in the fourth set this past Friday, which grabbed my attention because sets are only played to 25, but the team has to win by two. I thought this would be the most points in a single set this season, but it turns out the Citadel beat Western Carolina 43-41 in a set earlier this season.

• barttorvik.com: college hoops season is right around the corner, and Bart Torvik is now featuring women’s college basketball data on his site. A lovely addition.

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Thanks for reading this far, and go take a peek at the industrious code to produce the chart in this post. Team ratings, conference standings, and spreads/totals data for this college football season is all up-to-date here too: https://byc.evidence.app/college-football/team-ratings/

Oh, and please share this post if you found it useful:

1. Not exactly light reading.

2. The site - bball.notnothing.net - does a great job outlining all the different scenarios. See the ACC’s as of today (October 28).

3. Fun thread on this backstory.

4. Of course, an additional one or two league games won’t make the tiebreakers feel more coherent. The Big Ten’s 18 members play nine league games apiece, and its conference tiebreakers look about the same. There is even a scenario where Oregon misses the Big Ten title game at 12-0.

5. North Carolina is favored on the road in Tallahassee this weekend. Mack Brown has never beaten his alma mater, Florida State, as a head coach. A Carolina win would mean Florida State finishes 1-7 in ACC play or its worst finish ever in league play. The Seminoles are actively suing the ACC.

I’m about as intrigued as possible for a matchup between teams with a 4-4 record and 1-7 record.

6. Not like this night needed any more anxiety. Also, go vote.