There is a crowded group of teams vying for a spot in the ACC Championship, and heading into Week 11, Louisville was chief among them. Now, after Louisville’s disappointing 29-26 overtime loss to Cal and home, it looks like an uphill climb for the Cardinals to get into the ACC Title game and subsequently into the College Football Playoff.
After sitting at No. 15 last week, one spot behind Virginia, which accounted for the Cardinals’ only loss of the season to that point, Louisville slipped to No. 20 in the Week 11 rankings, in a tandem slide with the Cavaliers, which lost to Wake Forest for their first ACC loss of the season on Saturday night.
Louisville plummets to No. 20 in Week 11 CFP Rankings
Miami, now, a week after slotting in behind both Louisville and UVA, has moved up to No. 15, even with two ACC losses. With a non-conference win over Notre Dame in its back pocket, Miami’s chances of making the CFP as an at-large almost look better than its chances of making the ACC Championship Game. Louisville, despite its win over Miami, doesn’t find itself in the same situation.
With Clemson, SMU, and Kentucky left on the schedule, Louisville will not have an at-large case, even if it wins out. The only path, after being buried behind UVA at No. 20 this week, is to win the conference, and that’s more complicated than it may seem as the third-highest ranked team in the ACC with a win over the highest-ranked team.
There are still five one-loss teams in the conference heading into Week 12: Georgia Tech, which checked in at No. 16, Virginia, No. 22 Pitt, SMU, and Duke, which is 4-1 in conference play. The other four teams all have five ACC wins.
That puts Louisville in sixth place in the ACC, with Miami in seventh.
The good news for Louisville and the sliver of hope that ESPN’s FPI calculates to be a 4 percent chance to win the conference is that Pitt still plays Georgia Tech and Miami, Duke and Virginia are set to meet in Durham this Saturday, and Louisville plays SMU head-to-head.
So, Louisville’s path to the CFP involves winning its final two ACC games. Beating Kentucky would be nice, but unnecessary because Louisville has a head-to-head win over JMU, the likely Sun Belt champ that would be in consideration as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champ with the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and American.
From there, Louisville needs Duke to beat Virginia on Saturday, then lose one of its final two regular-season games to UNC or Wake Forest. Then, it needs Georgia Tech to lose to Pitt, and Pitt to lose to Miami. That would give Louisville a great chance to make the ACC Championship Game because it has head-to-head wins over Pitt, Miami, and would have one over SMU. Still, two-loss Virginia would be in over Louisville and would have to go to the second tiebreaker against Georgia Tech.
Then, Louisville would need to win the conference because, without an at-large case, the Cardinals are almost certain to be left out of the playoff.