With less than a week to go before Selection Sunday, the College Football Playoff picture is finally starting to take shape - and for Virginia and James Madison, the stakes couldn’t be clearer.
Virginia is on the cusp of making its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance, and the path is straightforward: beat Duke in Saturday’s ACC Championship Game, and they’re in. It’s that simple - and that massive.
The Cavaliers moved up just one spot in the latest CFP rankings, from No. 18 to No. 17, but that shift means little in the grand scheme. What matters is that with a win, Virginia would become the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion, securing one of the automatic bids in the new 12-team format.
That would lock the Cavaliers into the No. 11 seed, setting up a first-round road showdown with No. 6 Ole Miss - a team that’s been the center of college football’s off-field drama for weeks.
Now, Ole Miss is idle this weekend, so their playoff seeding is mostly out of their hands. But there’s still some movement possible.
If No. 4 Texas Tech falls to BYU in the Big 12 title game and drops at least two spots, or if No.
9 Alabama upsets No. 3 Georgia in the SEC Championship and jumps Ole Miss in the rankings, the Rebels could slide down a seed line.
That would potentially send Virginia to face Texas Tech or Oregon instead. But for now, all signs point to a trip to Oxford.
And that matchup would come with plenty of intrigue. Ole Miss is already locked into its first-ever playoff berth, but they’ll be doing it under new leadership.
After weeks of swirling rumors, Lane Kiffin - the SEC’s perennial headline magnet - made his decision on Sunday, leaving Oxford for LSU. In response, Ole Miss wasted no time, promoting defensive coordinator Pete Golding to head coach.
This isn’t an interim tag; Golding is the guy going forward. So when the Rebels take the field in the opening round on Dec. 19 or 20, it’ll be both their playoff debut and Golding’s first game as a head coach.
Back to Virginia: the Cavaliers already handled Duke once this season, winning 34-17 on the road. But this time, the stakes are exponentially higher. A loss would not only knock UVA out of the playoff picture - it would open the door for James Madison to crash the party.
JMU’s playoff hopes hinge on two things: beating Troy in Friday’s Sun Belt Championship, and then hoping Duke pulls off the upset against Virginia. If both those things happen, the Dukes would be 12-1 and in prime position to claim the final spot reserved for a Group of Five conference champion.
And make no mistake - JMU has been knocking on the door for weeks. Despite riding a 10-game win streak and dominating Coastal Carolina 59-10 last weekend, the Dukes only just cracked the CFP rankings, landing at No.
- The committee has been slow to reward them, citing strength of schedule, but the numbers - and the eye test - speak volumes.
Week after week, the bottom of the CFP rankings has seen teams stumble. Three weeks ago, five of the six teams ranked 20-25 lost.
Still, no love for JMU. Two weeks ago, Nos. 21-23 all went down.
Still, JMU remained on the outside looking in. But after another wave of losses this past weekend - Tennessee, Arizona State, SMU, Pitt, and Georgia Tech all fell - the committee finally gave the Dukes their due.
Still, there’s a catch. Tuesday’s rankings saw North Texas jump into the mix at No. 24, just ahead of JMU.
That’s a problem. If Virginia wins the ACC, the final Group of Five spot will go to the winner of the American Athletic Conference title game between Tulane and North Texas - both now ranked higher than JMU.
In that scenario, the Dukes are out, no matter how dominant they look on Friday.
But if Duke pulls off the upset and knocks out Virginia, the committee would be choosing between an 8-5 Blue Devils team and a 12-1 JMU squad that’s ranked in every human poll and ahead in every computer metric. Even with the ACC’s power-conference clout, that’s a tough sell.
So here’s the bottom line: Virginia controls its destiny. Win, and they’re in.
Lose, and they open the door for JMU to make history. Meanwhile, Ole Miss waits, watching the chaos unfold, ready to welcome whoever survives the final weekend shakeup.