What Are The ACC Football Tiebreakers to Decide Divisional Champ?

We take a look at how the ACC will decide who the champion will be for each division if it comes to the point where multiple teams are tied.

Within seconds of the final merciful whistle sounding Saturday in FSU football’s big time loss at the hands of Louisville, fans in garnet and gold were already planning how the ‘Noles can get back in the hunt for the ACC title and the College Football Playoff.

Falling to just No. 13 nationally (with the 12 teams ranked ahead of them all playing at least one other team in that group during the rest of 2016) kept the Seminoles in the hunt as long as they win out.

But what happens if not just the ‘Noles win out, but Clemson defeats Louisville on October 1st and both teams win the rest of their games?

All three teams will sit at 11-1 and a whole set of tiebreakers procedures will kick into place. Here’s the first four steps:

"Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.Winning percentage of the tied teams within the division.Head-to-head competition versus the team within the division with the best overall winning-percentage (divisional and non-divisional), and proceeding though the division. Multiple ties within the division will be broken from first to last using the league’s tie-breaking proceduresOverall winning percentage versus all common non-divisional opponents."

Okay, we’re still going to be tied since the Seminoles, Cardinals and Tigers will all be 11-1 overall, 7-1 in conference play and 5-1 within the division. What’s next?

"Combined winning percentage versus all non-divisional opponents."

This is where the Seminoles have the hardest road to stay in the three way tie. FSU takes on Miami and North Carolina from the Coastal Division, while Duke and Virginia are Louisville’s Coastal foes and Clemson takes on Georgia Tech and Pitt. For the sake of argument, we’ll say they all still win out.

"Winning percentage versus common non-divisional opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference winning percentage) and proceeding through other common non-divisional opponents based upon their order of finish within the division."

Since there is no common foe, this one doesn’t apply. Thus, we are down to our SEVENTH tiebreaker – something that may be even more insane than the rest as they are partnering with an analytics company that will provide a team rating metric number to decide the winner.

The reason why? The seventh tiebreaker was the team with the highest ranking in the College Football Playoff standings, but that doesn’t come out until the Tuesday before the title game.

Must Read: Make That Money: Top 5 NCAA Football Bets For Week 4

The easiest scenario for the ‘Noles? Win out, root for Clemson to beat Louisville and the Cardinals to lose at least one other conference game. By the way – the eight and final tiebreaker is a conference rep drawing a team name out of a hat.