Overview
- The ACC announced Wednesday that it has published a revised tiebreaker policy to be used beginning with the 2026 season.
- The new rules rest on three principles: head-to-head results take priority, teams will not be unfairly advantaged or penalized by playing eight versus nine conference games, and a team’s overall body of work will decide ties head-to-head cannot resolve.
- When head-to-head does not break a tie the conference will use the SportSource Analytics Team Success Ranking, the same metric the CFP uses, and will resort to a commissioner-administered draw only if needed.
- The policy redefines which squads count as 'tied teams' by using conference win percentage so the system works during 2026’s mix of eight- and nine-game ACC schedules and as the league moves toward a uniform nine-game model in 2027.
- The change follows a review that ran more than 10,000 simulated seasons and won approval from ACC athletic directors to prevent a repeat of last season’s scenario in which Duke reached the title game over higher-ranked Miami, which nearly jeopardized the conference’s CFP spot.