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2026 ACC Tiebreaker Unveiled at Media Days

Ispyin said:
This is all confusing as ****, but at its base: two teams with the same amount of wins or losses in conference are considered tied in any need for a tiebreaker, where head to head doesn't come into play in any 2 or more scenario, including undefeated 8-0 team vs 8-1 team. Tied

Same thing on the losses side.

But there is no transitive property, meaning an 8-0 team who is tied on one tiebreaker level with an 8-1 team because of same wins, and that 8-1 team is tied with a 7-1 team because of the same losses, does not mean the 7-1 team is also tied with the 8-0 team. You resolve the first one first.
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Yes. Your last point is correct. It actually isn’t very confusing after I saw that graphic I posted.

The issue and imo why this method fails to find the best solution, is that that tie breaker between the top 2 teams is the end of the question essentially. It is merely saying THOSE are the top 2 teams, the tie breaker is only determining who is 1st and 2nd in that scenario… regardless if the definition of tied can put a single team into two different buckets. Thats the problem. The 8-1 team and the 7-1 team SHOULD be considered tied, yet because the 8-1 and 8-0 team are considered tied, the 7-1 team can never “earn” the 2nd seed. That’s the problem. Literally ask yourself who SHOULD be the ACC Champ game reps in this situation:

- Team A is 8-0, with a H2H win against Team C and rated 1st by Sportsource.

- Team B is 8-1, with a bad SOS, is ranked 3rd by SportSource, and has a H2H Loss against Team C

- Team C is 7-1, with a Good SOS; is ranked 2nd by Sportsource, and has a H2H Win against Team B.

It seems clear to me Team A and C SHOULD be the ACC reps. But with this tie breaker methodology, Team A has Highest win%, and only team B is considered Tied with them therefore they are the two ACC Champ game representatives. The methodology SHOULD be to find the 1 seed, then re-apply the methodology to find the 2 seed. That would mean team A wins the first tie breaker over Team B to get the 1 seed. Then you go team B has best remaining Win% BUT Team C is tied with them, and has the Tie Breaker over them, therefore Team C gets 2nd seed….


Now this imo is why it SHOULD work this way, because it’s not like this ever results in Team A being left out either. Like if Team A was ranked 3rd by sports source fo some reason, team B/C was ranked 1st/2nd…and let’s just say Team A/B/C never played each other at alll… well Team B gets the tie breaker over Team A due to being ranked ahead by sportsource and being tied… but then there is never a tie breaker between Team A and C because Team A is 8-0 and Team C is 7-1… so I just don’t see the reason not to have it this way…
 
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Calinative said:
Yes. Your last point is correct. It actually isn’t very confusing after I saw that graphic I posted.

The issue and imo why this method fails to find the best solution, is that that tie breaker between the top 2 teams is the end of the question essentially. It is merely saying THOSE are the top 2 teams, the tie breaker is only determining who is 1st and 2nd in that scenario… regardless if the definition of tied can put a single team into two different buckets. Thats the problem. The 8-1 team and the 7-1 team SHOULD be considered tied, yet because the 8-1 and 8-0 team are considered tied, the 7-1 team can never “earn” the 2nd seed. That’s the problem. Literally ask yourself who SHOULD be the ACC Champ game reps in this situation:

- Team A is 8-0, with a H2H win against Team C and rated 1st by Sportsource.

- Team B is 8-1, with a bad SOS, is ranked 3rd by SportSource, and has a H2H Loss against Team C

- Team C is 7-1, with a Good SOS; is ranked 2nd by Sportsource, and has a H2H Win against Team B.

It seems clear to me Team A and C SHOULD be the ACC reps. But with this tie breaker methodology, Team A has Highest win%, and only team B is considered Tied with them therefore they are the two ACC Champ game representatives. The methodology SHOULD be to find the 1 seed, then re-apply the methodology to find the 2 seed. That would mean team A wins the first tie breaker over Team B to get the 1 seed. Then you go team B has best remaining Win% BUT Team C is tied with them, and has the Tie Breaker over them, therefore Team C gets 2nd seed….


Now this imo is why it SHOULD work this way, because it’s not like this ever results in Team A being left out either. Like if Team A was ranked 2nd by sports source, team C was ranked 1st, and Team B was ranked 1st… and let’s just say Team A/B/C never played each other at alll… well Team B gets the tie breaker over Team A due to being ranked ahead by sportsource and being tied… but then there is never a tie breaker between Team A and C because Team A is 8-0 and Team C is 7-1… so I just don’t see the reason not to have it this way…
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I mean, I think that's a big issue but the biggest issue to me is that the ACC now potentially in an earlier phase of tiebreakers and other conferences might use an independent source for could essentially be choosing someone to go to their championship game based on an index that weighs out of conference games to break an in conference tiebreaker. Now last year for Miami that would've helped too, but there were years where some people are playing *** out of conference games in addition to getting the lucky break or not inside the conference. I don't think they should be doing something that has an impact from out of conference to establish a tiebreaker in the conference until you get through some last resort scenarios. Do you wanna pull an index in great but Megan is close to deciding something on head-to-head win losses within the conference.
 
Ispyin said:
I mean, I think that's a big issue but the biggest issue to me is that the ACC now potentially in an earlier phase of tiebreakers and other conferences might use an independent source for could essentially be choosing someone to go to their championship game based on an index that weighs out of conference games to break an in conference tiebreaker. Now last year for Miami that would've helped too, but there were years where some people are playing *** out of conference games in addition to getting the lucky break or not inside the conference. I don't think they should be doing something that has an impact from out of conference to establish a tiebreaker in the conference until you get through some last resort scenarios. Do you wanna pull an index in great but Megan is close to deciding something on head-to-head win losses within the conference.
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I mean it’s possible SportsSource makes a ranking system purely based off Intra conference results. Though if we added outside context in a tie breaker scenario, I don’t see why that’s bad. It certainly would have eliminated Duke last yr…

There is no way to avoid a ranking system for tie breakers when the conference is so large and so few teams play each other, making in conference SOS so different
 
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The Clemson game….

Clemson is dying a slow death. Dabo knows this. That game will be his final chance to resuscitate his program, and maybe save his job. They will throw everything at us in all 3 phases to pull that upset.

Animals in the wild sense a wounded nemesis. Mario can send this team to irrelevant ****.

It’ll be a night game, packed house. its 2.5 hours from Buford GA. pulling up for that game.
 
According to Lashlee and Diaz, none of the ACC coaches were consulted in adapting this rule (neither like it). Not sure where the others stand on it.

As an aside, in watching the GT coach at the podium, is he always such a jerk?
 
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