CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The ACC used its annual kickoff event Wednesday to unveil a notable change to how its football title game will be determined starting in 2026, a move designed to sort out a complicated scheduling landscape and send the league’s best two teams to Charlotte.
Commissioner Jim Phillips, opening his sixth year on the job, delivered his usual message about the conference’s national standing. But the headline development came alongside those remarks: beginning with the 2026 season, the ACC will use a new tiebreaking procedure to decide which teams reach the championship game.
The issue is tied to the math of a 17-team league trying to fit into a nine-game conference schedule, especially with non-conference games already locked in for the transitional 2026 setup. Under that arrangement, 12 ACC teams will play nine league games, while five teams will play eight.
To keep the uneven schedule from working against teams that may face a tougher route to the top of the standings, the league approved a three-part process for determining the two teams that will play for the ACC’s automatic qualifying bid to the College Football Playoff.
“Head-to-head will always matter the most,” Phillips said. “Then we will look at the grouping and how teams fared in the regular conference season.”
Phillips said the league worked with several consultants and ran roughly 10,000 algorithm tests using different season scenarios before settling on the formula. The goal, he said, is to make sure the right teams end up in the title game at Charlotte on December 5, when the championship will move to a 12:00 p.m. ET start on ABC.
“It will come down to body of work,” Phillips added. “Who you play, when you play, the games you win, in conference and non-conference will matter. That's a major change in college sports and certainly for the ACC.”
The Orange were represented in Charlotte by head coach Fran Brown, quarterback Steve Angeli, linebacker Antonio Deslauriers and defensive back Demetres Samuel Jr., with athletic director Bryan Blair arriving a day earlier. Blair, one of two new ACC athletic directors this year, spent time with Phillips on the eve of kickoff and was seen Wednesday morning near the event’s “Radio Row” setup in the hotel lobby area.
Blair said his first few months at Syracuse have been eye-opening, even though only two weeks of that time have come since he officially took over the AD title.
“It’s been an exhilarating learning experience so far,” Blair said.
He also sounded optimistic about what the Orange might show once the preseason predictions come out next week.
“We’re just getting started (in the job),” Blair added. “I feel good about where we stand heading into the (football) season. I think we can surprise people.”
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