Last year, Notre Dame made $20 million from the College Football Playoff. This year, the entire ACC could end up with its pockets empty.

That’s because the ACC is in grave danger of not placing a single team in this season’s 12-team Playoff bracket. If unranked Duke upsets No. 17 Virginia on Saturday night in the ACC championship game, it’s highly likely that not a single team from the Power 4 conference will make the CFP, and that two Group of 6 teams will.

At stake is at least $116 million in performance-based CFP revenue distribution that the ACC would have no chance at earning. 

Conferences (or the individual school in the case of independent Notre Dame) will receive $4 million for each team that ultimately makes the CFP, with further payouts each round:

• Qualifying for the CFP: $4 million (12 teams)
• Advancing to the quarterfinals: $4 million (8 teams)
• Advancing to the semifinals: $6 million (4 teams)
• Advancing to the national championship game: $6 million (2 teams)

There is no extra monetary prize for winning the CFP, but each team will receive $3 million to cover expenses for each round.

New this year is a slight shift tied to the CFP’s move to straight seeding: While the four highest-ranked conference champions no longer receive top seeds and first-round byes, they will still earn a guaranteed $8 million for their respective leagues even if they lose their first-round matchup.

If Virginia beats Duke, it will be in line to earn that automatic $8 million payment for the ACC as the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion. If Duke wins, though, the American Conference will be set for the guaranteed $8 million payday with No. 20 Tulane, who beat No. 24 North Texas in Friday’s title game, becoming the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion. 

The Sun Belt Conference is the second Group of 6 league hoping for a Virginia loss, which would send No. 25 James Madison, which beat Troy in Friday’s title game, to the CFP.

Beyond the conference championship chaos, there is still a small chance the CFP selection committee could decide to move No. 12 Miami (the ACC’s highest-ranked team) up high enough in Sunday’s final rankings to give them an at-large bid.

A Power 4 conference missing out entirely on the CFP, and two Group of 6 conference champions making it, is not a development that was ever the intention for the expanded, 12-team format. 

It had been assumed that the Power 4 conference champions would at least be among the five highest-ranked league winners, if not almost always the top four. But last year, the Mountain West’s Boise State was the third-highest-ranked conference champion. The ACC still got two bids, though, in conference winner Clemson and at-large selection SMU. Neither team won its first-round game, so the conference made $8 million in performance bonuses.

Next year, the CFP’s revenue-distribution structure is shifting away from performance bonuses. The SEC and Big Ten will earn 29% each, the ACC 17%, the Big 12 15%, and the Group of 6 conferences collectively 9%.

This week’s release of the College Football Playoff rankings heading into conference championship weekend has Miami at the No. 12 slot and Texas at No. 13. Both are on the outside looking in as two final slots will be claimed by lower-ranked conference champions, and neither the Hurricanes nor the Longhorns are playing for those titles.

Miami and Texas, however, believe they should be considered for at-large positions. The continued politicking for CFP positions again shows that even with an expanded, 12-team field for the CFP, the recriminations are just as strong as during the prior four-team era—if not more so. 

In the Hurricanes’ case, they are a two-loss team that has defeated Notre Dame, another two-loss team standing at No. 10. The Longhorns have three losses, but two of those are to No. 1 Ohio State and No. 3 Georgia, and Texas also claims wins over two other top-10 teams and No. 14 Vanderbilt.  

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian went on an extended media tour this week to make his team’s CFP case, repeatedly highlighting the Longhorns’ unusually stacked schedule this year. It was to no avail.

“We’ve played the hardest schedule of all the remaining teams left in the CFP, and that’s supposed to be the No. 1 criteria, strength of schedule,” Sarkisian said. “The second [criteria] is supposed to be head-to-head competition. Well, there’s two teams [Oklahoma and Texas A&M] that are in there that we beat by multiple scores. So is that head-to-head competition or not?”

Fans Cry Bias

Fans of both Miami and Texas have also spent this week flooding social media and sports talk shows, complaining about a perceived bias toward the Southeastern Conference, which could place five teams in the field. 

“No words. These ESPN/CFP invitational rankings are a joke,” tweeted Chuck Todd, former host of Meet the Press and a Miami-area native, referencing the Disney-owned outlet that will show the tournament and has a larger rights relationship with the SEC. 

“The bias toward the SEC is the tell. Both [Oklahoma] and Bama should be below Miami and Notre Dame. But typical SEC bias. If Ole Miss were not in the SEC, I promise you this [committee] would have dropped them, too. It is what it is. I know Miami will be screwed again,” Todd wrote.

Miami’s candidacy is complicated by the Atlantic Coast Conference’s championship matchup between Duke and Virginia, a messy situation that leaves out the Hurricanes, the conference’s highest-ranked team, out of the game—and could keep the ACC out of the CFP altogether if the unranked Blue Devils win. The Hurricanes lost out to Duke in a five-way tiebreaker to face Virginia for the ACC title. 

This week has also featured sniping between Sarkisian and Miami head coach Mario Cristobal. On Monday, Sarkisian claimed the Hurricanes ran up the score in a 38–7 win over Pittsburgh in an attempt to sway the committee. That game featured a Miami touchdown with less than a minute remaining.

“Is the committee watching the games, or are they looking at a stat sheet at the end of the game to say, ‘Oh, well they won by this many points. They must’ve played really good,’” Sarkisian said on the SEC Network.

Cristobal pointed to the teams’ respective schedules in response. “That’s funny,” he told On3. “We had one common opponent. Florida dominated Texas 29–21, a team we beat convincingly, 26–7. That settles that debate.”

Both teams, however, are looking at lesser bowl games instead of the CFP to finish out their seasons.