College Football Playoff ramifications: ACC Championship Game could throw wrench in CFP

While a majority of the talk from Tuesday’s reveal of the latest College Football Playoff rankings has centered around Alabama jumping Miami, the ACC Championship Game could throw a wrench into everything.

The winner will receive an automatic bid to the 12-team dance. While SMU is firmly within the Top 12 at the moment, their opponent, Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers, winning would change everything. Heather Dinich joined Wednesday’s edition of Get Up to explain why.

“This is huge. Because, as we sit here and the committee debates Alabama and Miami, both of them can be left out,” Dinich stated. “Because if Clemson wins the ACC, and two of the five highest-ranked conference champions are out of the selection committee’s Top 12 on Selection Day, Alabama and Miami will both get bumped out for the last two highest ranked conference champions. People need to understand that.

“We’ve talked about No. 12 getting bumped out, which is Miami this week, for Arizona State. But it can happen to Alabama, as well.”

While Clemson has a win-or-go-home scenario in the ACC title game, some have theorized SMU could be punished if they lose the game, as well. That’s led Paul Finebaum to question whether the Mustangs should even want to play in North Carolina, as well as pointing out an underrated overarching storyline involving Swinney he has his eyes on.

“It’s a terrible flaw in the system, because the commissioners have been arguing and pleading, ‘You can’t kick a team out for losing a conference title game, because they’ve earned their way in.’ I mean, think about this for a second. The team that would be knocking them out, Clemson, I mean, they’re a very flawed team,” Finebaum elaborated. “They lost their rivalry game at the end of the season at home.

“The epic games (against Alabama), what about Dabo Swinney, the coach at Clemson, knocking Alabama out? He’s a graduate. He went to school there. A couple of months ago, when Alabama was looking for a replacement for Nick Saban, did they call the guy that beat them twice for the national championship? Dabo Swinney never got a call.”

While it would be sweet revenge for Dabo Swinney and Clemson to potentially knock Alabama out of the College Football Playoff by winning the ACC title game, it certainly would be a chaotic scenario. All eyes will be on Charlotte, when the Tigers take on SMU with major College Football Playoff ramifications.