ACC establishes tiebreaker procedures for title game

The ACC shared its tie-breaker procedures for the football championship game as the league transitions from the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions to a single division in 2023.

The two teams with the highest winning percentage during the regular season will play in the ACC Championship Game, but the new policy features a plan for if there is a two-way tie or a tie of three or more teams.

The ACC is transitioning to a 3-5-5 model, where every team has three permanent rivalry opponents they will play each year while cycling through the remaining teams on an every-other-year basis. It’s a format that’s become popular with the American Athletic Conference eliminating divisions last season and the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences following suit this season. The Big 12 has been without divisions since 2011.

“I’m really incredibly excited about the collapsing of the divisions and us having a chance to get our very two best teams into the ACC Championship and then into the College Football Playoff,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. “Then, as we have an expanded College Football Playoff, it really does give us a chance to have multiple teams by structuring it that way.”

The Playoff expands to 12 teams starting in 2024, with the top six conference champions and six at-large teams qualifying. The four highest-ranked teams will receive a first-round bye, while the remaining eight teams will play at home sites based on the next four highest-ranked teams.

“I’m fired up for our student-athletes that over the course of a four-year span, they’re going to travel and play every school in our conference home and away and that we’ve just gone too long with certain games not being played six years, eight years.”

The ACC went to a single-season format just for the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with Clemson and Notre Dame, which joined on a one-year basis, facing off in the championship game.

The procedure for a two-team tie consists of the following:

1. Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.

2. Win-percentage versus all common opponents.

3. 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.

4. Combined win percentage of conference opponents.

5. The tied team with the higher ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular season games.

6. The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee.

If there’s a three-team tie, the procedure is the same as a two-team tie. First, it determines which team qualifies for the title game. After that, the process starts over for the rest of the tied teams. Here are the steps:

1. Combined headto-head win percentage among the tied teams if all tied teams are common opponents.

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

3. Win-percentage versus all common opponents.

4. 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.

5. Combined win percentage of conference opponents.

6. The tied team with the highest ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular season games.

7. The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee.

The ACC Championship Game is scheduled for Dec. 2 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.