After years of chasing parity in college football, the ACC in 2025 made an irrefutable bid for worst Power 4 conference — even with the Sunday surprise of Miami being included in the College Football Playoff.
As the CFP committee sharpened their pencils late into Saturday night and Sunday morning, the ACC school with the best chance to make the 12-team field finished in a five-way tie for second place. Miami was snubbed by the CFP last year for poor strength of schedule, but bolstered this season by a first week win over Notre Dame. The issue this year? Two losses in a far weaker conference, to teams in SMU and Louisville that each saw the wheels fall off to end their regular seasons. Pundits have debated for weeks whether the Hurricanes ought to get in based on their win over the Fighting Irish and looking great during their best performances. No matter how you slice it, it’s clear they are lucky to have gotten in.
Miami tight end Elija Lofton celebrates after a touchdown reception during the first half of their college football game vs. Virginia Tech on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in Blacksburg, Va. (AP Photo/Robert Simmons)
First place Virginia, (10-2 overall, 7-1 in conference play), lost Saturday’s ACC Championship game to Duke, one of four teams that ended the regular season with overall 7-5 records. If the Cavaliers had won, the CFP committee’s job would have been made easier. But their loss verifies how average-to-awful the league was and continues to weaken the candidacy of any ACC school seeking to join the mega-wealthy Big Ten or SEC in future realignment.
Overall, the ACC showed a poor version of parity among its top 11 teams, while the lower six all had losing conference and overall records. This included the collapse of 2023 ACC champion Florida State and poor showings from former division winners UNC (2015) and Virginia Tech (2010). The teams tied for last place at 1-7 were Boston College — which won its first and last games around 10 straight defeats — and Syracuse, who upset Clemson during a 3-1 start to the season, but went 0-8 after losing its starting quarterback.
UNC, BC, Syracuse and Virginia Tech have all hired new coaches over the last two years, and Florida State’s Mike Norvell has gone 7-17 since winning the ACC championship in 2023. A $50 million-plus buyout from FSU is giving him at least one more season in Tallahassee.
Clemson, the beacon of ACC football over the last 10 years with seven appearances in the CFP and two national championships, was one of five teams that posted 4-4 conference records and, after starting 1-3, won its last four games to salvage a winning season — but its worst record (7-5) since 2010. That has sparked talk of coach Dabo Swinney leaving.
SMU has had two good seasons after joining the ACC with mediocre Cal and Stanford. In 2024, the Mustangs were 11-1 before losing to Clemson in the ACC championship game and Penn State in the first round of the CFP. Entering the 2025 regular season finale at Cal, they were 8-3 and looked like a shoo-in to get back to Charlotte as a favorite to beat Virginia. After trailing the Bears for most of the night, SMU took a last-minute lead only to lose in the closing seconds and handing the second-place tiebreaker to Duke.
Duke players celebrate with the trophy after defeating No. 17 Virginia in the 2025 ACC Football Championship on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025 in Charlotte, N.C. (Photo via AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman.)
Georgia Tech and Pitt, which both went 6-2 in conference play, also had bizarre endings to their seasons. The Yellow Jackets began 8-0 and were ranked in the top 10 before losing three of their last four games to finish a disappointing 9-3. The Panthers started 2-2 before winning five straight and losing two of their last three, including being blown out at home by Miami and falling out of contention for the ACC championship game.
N.C. State, Louisville and Wake Forest, three more 4-4 teams, had erratic seasons. The Wolfpack won its first three games, impressive wins over East Carolina, Virginia and Wake, before losing four of the next five, and rallying to win three of the last four, including its fifth straight over archrival Carolina. Louisville won seven of its first eight with the only loss in overtime to Virginia. The Cardinals were in play for the ACC regular season title but then suffered one-score losses to Cal and Clemson before being routed by SMU. A 41-0 crushing of in-state rival Kentucky of the SEC didn’t do much beyond getting the Wildcats’ all-time winning coach Mark Stoops fired. Like the ‘Ville, Wake Forest also finished 8-4 and 4-4 in the ACC on the strength of beating Virginia (which played without injured quarterback Chandler Morris) and holding the Tar Heels without a touchdown in a 28-12 win under first-year coach Jake Dickert.
The lower six ACC teams went 11-37 in the conference and 18-51 overall under head coaches who all ended the season in various degrees of hot water. Stanford and Virginia Tech hired new field bosses, while UNC completed its worst season since 2018 by losing to all three in-state Big Four rivals. Off the field, Bill Belichick remained dogged by questions surrounding his young girlfriend Jordon Hudson and swapping transfer portal losses for pick-ups of high schoolers and junior college transfers. Will the gigantic top-20 ranked incoming class of players help the Heels avoid this same disaster next season?
Meanwhile, conference championship Saturday featured two bad games in the afternoon — second-half slaughters by CFP entry Texas Tech over BYU for the Big 12 title and first-round bye team Georgia crushing on-the-bubble rival Alabama in the SEC. They were followed by two night-time upsets and white knucklers. No. 2 Indiana broke a 30-game losing streak to No. 1 Ohio State in the Big Ten thriller and Virginia tied Duke with a 96-yard drive in one minute, 22 seconds; the Blue Devils won in overtime on a fourth-down touchdown pass by quarterback and game MVP Darian Mensah and an interception of a flee-flicker pass from the Wahoo’s Morris, who left Bank of America Stadium in tears while the Dukies celebrated their first ACC football title since 1989.
The win left the CFP committee with a tough choice and the possibility of no ACC team making the playoff, which would have been appropriate for one of the more insipid seasons in conference history. Now, Miami’s agony is over and they have a chance to justify the committee’s decision. The rest of the conference’s teams and fans are left sweating over just what the close call means for the ACC’s longevity.
Featured photo via AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
