Surprising Duke meets No. 16 Virginia in ACC Championship Game amid CFP uncertainty

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — It’s the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game that was hard to imagine back in September — and one that could potentially complicate the College Football Playoff scenario.

Duke, by virtue of winning a complicated five-team tiebreaker, will face No. 16 Virginia in Charlotte on Saturday night after both teams overcame steep odds for a chance to compete for their first ACC championship.

Those on the College Football Playoff bubble will be keeping a close eye on this one.

If Virginia (10-2, No. 17 CFP) wins, the Cavaliers will almost certainly earn a playoff spot. A victory by the unranked Blue Devils (7-5), a 3 1/2-point underdog, opens up the possibility of the ACC being squeezed out of the 12-team CFP entirely based on Tuesday night’s rankings.

And then there’s a scenario where both conference championship contenders could be shutout of the playoffs, while the conference’s top-ranked team, No. 12 Miami (10-2, 6-2), gets in.

Or, both Virginia and Miami could make it.

Yes, it’s a lot to digest.

But that’s the type of strange, unpredictable season it has been in the ACC, a conference that has largely been dominated by perennial national power Clemson over the last decade.

Clemson, which has won eight of the last 10 ACC championships, entered the season as the overwhelming favorite to win it all behind Associated Press preseason first team All-American quarterback Cade Klubnik. But Dabo Swinney’s Tigers stumbled out of the blocks with back-to-back conference losses and never recovered, opening the door for other schools to make some noise.

Duke and Virginia, picked to finish sixth and 14th in the conference respectively before the season, capitalized.

The Cavaliers won their first outright regular-season championship in school history, while the Blue Devils earned a trip to the title game despite five losses because of a higher conference opponent winning percentage than Miami, SMU, Pitt and Georgia Tech, the other teams that finished 6-2 in ACC play.

For Virginia, reaching the ACC title game in its fourth season under coach Tony Elliott represents a huge step for the program. The Cavs were 5-7 last year.

“I think it gives us confirmation. It gives us motivation. It gives us encouragement, a little bit of validation that we’re definitely headed in the right direction to make this a competitive rivalry and make Virginia a program of relevance locally and then also nationally,” Elliott said after the team clinched a berth in the championship game with a win over rival Virginia Tech last Saturday.

Duke’s CFP chances

The Blue Devils aren’t guaranteed a spot in the CFP even with a win, largely because of non-conference losses to Tulane and UConn.

Duke coach Manny Diaz predictably disagrees with that scenario, saying the ACC champion deserves a spot.

“We have five losses, and we wish we’d played better in those games,” Diaz said. “But we lost to two 10-win teams, two nine-win teams and an eight-win team. Records have a lot to do with schedules.”

Rematch is set

Coaches had plenty of fresh tape to study this week in preparation for this rematch.

The two teams played just three weeks ago with Virginia thumping Duke 34-17 in Durham, North Carolina. Chandler Morris threw for 316 yards and two touchdowns and J’Mari Taylor ran for 133 yards and two scores as the Cavaliers led 31-3 after three quarters.

Duke was held to season lows in several categories, including total offense (255), yard rushing (42), yards passing (213), pass completions (18), points scored (17) and first downs (11).

Elliott downplayed his team’s success in that game leading into Saturday night.

“You’ve got to throw out what you did in the previous game,” Elliott said. “This game is going to come down to execution, and I’m sure we’re going to get Duke’s best effort. Since our game, (Duke) has gotten back into rhythm offensively and been able to score a bunch of points.”

This marks the first time since 1906 that Virginia has played an opponent twice in the same season.

Cavaliers on the run

Virginia finished with the third-best rushing attack in the ACC, averaging 188.7 yards per game. Taylor led the conference with 997 yards rushing and is looking for his second-straight 1,000-yard season after running for 1,146 yards last season at North Carolina Central.

The Cavaliers haven’t had a 1,000-yard back since Jordan Ellis in 2018.

Been there, not done it

Virginia and Duke will each be making a second appearance in the ACC title game — and neither went particularly well the first time around. Florida State routed the Blue Devils 45-7 in the 2013 championship game, while Clemson pounded the Cavaliers 62-17 in 2019.

Elliott was Clemson’s co-offensive coordinator in that game.

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