Clemson football fans are freaking out for no reason.
After the Saturday afternoon game between Clemson football and FSU was postponed a mere three hours before kickoff, it gave fans too much time to think. The result of that was someone started a rumor on Twitter that not playing this game could cost the Tigers another shot at Notre Dame.
Not only did someone spread this lie, but it also wasn’t based on anything written or released by the ACC.
Back in August when the ACC said that they were going to play football in 2020, they published a new set of tie-breaker rules and apparently no one read them Saturday afternoon. Here is the release from the ACC:
"Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams."
"Head-to-head competition versus the team with the best overall win percentage and proceeding through the conference. Multiple ties within the conference will be broken from first to last using the league’s tiebreaker policies."
"Overall win percentage versus all common conference opponents."
"Win percentage versus common conference opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage) and proceeding through other common conference opponents based upon their conference order of finish."
"The tied team with the higher ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource"
"Analytics following the conclusion of regular-season games."
"The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee."
Clemson football controls their ACC title game future.
Even if Miami were to end up playing one more game then Clemson, win percentage only comes into play for teams that have played equal amount of games.
If FSU isn’t rescheduled, Clemson will not have played the same amount of games as Miami at that point, so win percentage becomes a non factor and their head to head matchup is what breaks the tie.
As you can clearly see, whether Clemson football plays the game against FSU or plays another game at all before the ACC Championship game does not matter.
All Clemson football has to do in order to guarantee another shot at Notre Dame is win out. Focus on Pittsburgh this week and Virginia Tech the next and the Tigers will punch their ticket to Charlotte.
Both the Panthers and Hokies will present challenges but a healthy and well-rested Clemson football team should have no issues making a statement against either of those teams. If the players allow their disappointment of not getting to play FSU Saturday linger, it could make the next two weeks a tad more interesting.
However, given that Pittsburgh is Senior Day and the trip to Blacksburg should mean the first time we see the Tigers’ orange britches, the Tigers should have no problem moving past this weekend’s disappointment.