why was miami not in the acc championship

just now 1
Nature

Miami missed the 2025 ACC championship game because of the league’s multi‑team tiebreaker rules after a five‑way tie in the conference standings.

Record and standings

Miami finished 10–2 overall and 6–2 in ACC play, with both losses coming in conference games against Louisville and SMU. That 6–2 mark left the Hurricanes in a multi‑team tie with Duke, SMU, Pittsburgh, and Georgia Tech for second place behind Virginia.

ACC tiebreaker effect

With several teams tied at 6–2, the ACC applied its tiebreaker ladder, which eventually went to the combined conference winning percentage of each tied team’s ACC opponents. Duke’s ACC opponents had a slightly better overall conference record than Miami’s opponents, so Duke won the tiebreaker and earned the spot opposite Virginia in the title game.

Key games that mattered

Miami did what it needed in the finale by routing Pittsburgh, but results elsewhere locked them out once the tiebreakers kicked in. Virginia’s win over Virginia Tech and Duke’s win over Wake Forest finalized the standings in a way that kept Miami in third place in the ACC pecking order despite being the league’s highest‑ranked team nationally.