Josh Pate outlines 'doomsday' scenario for ACC in College Football Playoff

The second edition of the 2025 College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night. And after a topsy-turvy week in the ACC it’s becoming clear that a potential disaster scenario exists for the league.

College football analyst Josh Pate was quick to point out the potential problem for the ACC on his show, Josh Pate’s College Football Show, on Tuesday night. It requires a significant setup.

“There is a world where the ACC misses the playoff, which was once thought to be impossible,” Pate said. “But that was a whole different world. That was like three weeks ago. Now it’s possible.”

How, you might be wondering? Well, the college football analyst dove into the exact particulars.

“Here’s what needs to happen: Duke wins the ACC,” Pate said. “That’s really what needs to happen, and then a couple of these (other) teams fall. Here is the concern: Miami is the highest-ranked ACC team. They’re not going to play for the conference title. Their best shot is to be an at-large team, which I think they have some possibility for, and I’ll talk about that later. Then you’ve got Georgia Tech at 16, I think they could go and play for the conference title, so let’s just bookmark them. Virginia, they’re limping right now. Louisville, they’re limping right now. Pitt‘s at 22. They play Notre Dame this weekend. Also some of these teams play each other.

“So let me just paint a picture for you, because I know you’re thinking in your head, ‘He’s crazy. The ACC champ is guaranteed a spot in the playoff.’ No they’re not. It’s just that 99% of the time, all of the Power Four conference champs would lock down spots in the playoff.”

That might not be the case this year, though. There’s a world where multiple Group of Six conference champions finish the season ranked ahead of the ACC champion. It’s particularly possible if Duke wins the league.

“Here’s the rule,” Pate said. “The rule is there are five automatic spots given to the five highest-ranked FBS conference champs. Now it was thought when they constructed the playoff, we don’t need to say ‘the highest-ranked Power Four champs,’ it just goes without saying conference champs in Power Four leagues are always going to trump conference champs from G5 leagues. That’s just always going to happen. Yeah, we thought so. Here’s the problem: Maybe not.”

So how does the rest of the scenario play out? Well, it requires teams like Georgia Tech and Miami not being ranked high enough to push for an at-large spot. That’s no given.

“Duke is 8-4, or could be 8-4,” Pate said. “They’re 5-4 right now. They’ve got three more games. Only one of their losses is a conference loss. So they have to play Virginia, North Carolina and Wake Forest their final three games. Looks like all three of those games are at home, by the way.

“Duke could go to Charlotte to play for a conference title at 8-4. As of this moment it looks like Georgia Tech is their most likely opponent. What if they go and they do that, and they play Georgia Tech in Charlotte and they beat Georgia Tech? Georgia Tech’s going to be out, they’re not going to be an at-large. Would Duke, here’s the question, be one of the five highest-ranked conference champs? I don’t know that they would.”

Pate laid out the scenario where multiple Group of Six conference champs remain ahead of Duke. It’s not an unthinkable possibility.

“I certainly don’t think that they’ll be ahead of USF, let’s say, if USF wins the American,” Pate said. “And I don’t know that they’d be ahead of James Madison if James Madison wins the Sun Belt. And once we swallow that harsh potential reality, we ask, ‘OK, well what is the ACC’s best shot to get a team in?’ It would probably be Miami, which brings me to my next point.”

Miami can prevent the ACC doomsday scenario, according to Pate. That’s the luxury of playing a strong non-conference schedule which has propped things up a bit.

“Miami’s got some oxygen, but I don’t know if you were listening,” Pate said. “I was listening to the playoff committee chair talk on the broadcast, and they were asking him, ‘Hey, how do you perceive the ACC?’ And he sort of showed the committee’s hand a little bit, he said, ‘Outside of Miami, this league has no good out-of-conference wins to hang its hat on.’ So it’s up to you, Miami, is what I’m saying. It’s up to Miami. Miami has some oxygen.”