Greg McElroy believes the ACC is most likely to be a one-bid league in the College Football Playoff
The 2024 college football season may only be three weeks old, but it’s never too early to start forecasting what the new 12-team College Football Playoff will look like ahead of one of the most highly anticipated postseasons.
One of the biggest talking points surrounding the expanded College Football Playoff is how many teams will be represented from each conference. And heading into Week 4, college football analyst Greg McElroy revealed that one of his major takeaways is some potentially bad news for the ACC.
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“The ACC’s only hope for two teams in the College Football Playoff is an upset in the ACC Championship game,” McElroy said. “Now it’s easy to kind of evaluate and be a prisoner of the moment, it’s easy to evaluate teams based on what they’ve done through three weeks, and it’s easy to jump to conclusions. I’m gonna try to resist doing that, just gonna be honest.”
McElroy shared that he’s already lost hope in the defending ACC champion Florida State Seminoles making the CFP, who have gotten off to a disappointing and shocking 0-3 start to the season. Leaving one team head and shoulders above the pack in the eyes of McElroy, the No. 8 ranked Miami Hurricanes.
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“So Miami’s up here, they are in the elites not just in their conference, but in all of college football. Who’s next?” McElroy asked. “Is it Clemson, who was off this past weekend? Is it Louisville, who was off this past weekend? And right now, if we were to fast forward to the end of the year do you anticipate Clemson being a team that if they lost the ACC Championship game would still get an at-large birth? Do you envision that? Because I’m thinking right now it feels a little unlikely.”
Louisville and Clemson are the only other two ranked teams in the ACC sitting respectively at No. 19 and No. 21 in the latest AP Poll. But facing each other along with other tough matchups in the ACC would make double-digit win seasons for either team challenging. Also tabbing teams like Pittsburgh and Syracuse as contenders to maybe sneak into the conference title game, but not the College Football Playoff.
“So right now, I look at the ACC and it’s feeling more and more like a one-team league and that one team at the moment feels like Miami. Now (if) Clemson gets in, beats Miami in the ACC title game, then obviously it becomes a two-team league,” McElroy explained. “But like I said, the takeaway here is that unless there’s an upset in the ACC Championship game, I don’t see a scenario where the ACC is getting two in the 12-team College Football Playoff.”
The winner of the ACC Championship game automatically punches a ticket to the College Football Playoff. But it will be fascinating to see if another team, or teams, from the conference can gain some momentum and garner some CFP acknowledgement with plenty of season left.