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HARRISONBURG, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – On Saturday afternoon, James Madison was drubbing Appalachian State, a win that helped it clinch a spot in the Sun Belt title game.
Meanwhile, four hours south in Durham, N.C., Virginia took a massive step toward earning a berth in the ACC championship game with a road win at Duke.
UVA’s offense got the bounce back effort it needed not just to beat the Blue Devils – which it did, convincingly, 34-17 – but to re-establish itself as a legitimate ACC title contender.
The Dukes, meanwhile, demolished the Mountaineers, 58-10, the kind of eye-catching margin that might finally begin to sway the College Football Selection committee in their favor.
And just like that, Virginia is one of five states with two teams legitimately in the hunt for a berth in the College Football Playoff.
Indiana and Notre Dame could represent the Hoosier State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech are on track to make the playoffs from the Lone Star State, both Georgia and Georgia Tech are in the hunt from the Peach State and BYU and Utah are both in contention from the Beehive State.
UVA and JMU have the Old Dominion right there, too.
“Where does this thing end up? Where’s the ceiling in this whole thing? I don’t know,” JMU coach Robert Chesney said Saturday. “But we’re certainly breaking through it right now.”
The new committee rankings will be released Tuesday.
The Sunshine and the Buckeye states probably lost their shot Saturday. While Florida still has Miami in the hunt, South Florida’s loss to Navy drops their chances of being included in the CFP.
Ohio has a lock in Ohio State but a long shot with Cincinnati after its loss Saturday.
“We hear a lot about it, but it’s not going to happen if we don’t complete our job for the rest of the season,” said JMU defensive back DJ Barksdale. “If we don’t do our job, College Football Playoffs is going to be gone in a week.”
The Dukes host Washington State on Saturday, then end the year at Coastal Carolina. It needs to win both to have a shot at being the highest rated Group of Five school in the CFP rankings, guaranteeing it a spot in the field.
The Cavaliers have an open date before their annual rivalry matchup with the Hokies.
The win over Duke sets the Cavaliers up for a shot to reach the ACC title game by beating Tech. Win the championship in Charlotte, and Virginia would be headed for the CFP.
Please note. Even with a win over the Hokies, however, UVA could need tiebreakers to get into the title game if there’s a three-way deadlock atop the ACC standings.
If UVA, Georgia Tech and SMU are all tied with one loss, the Yellow Jackets get the top seed in the ACC title game. Virginia and SMU would come down to a strength of schedule tiebreaker, according to the conference.
That metric could move over the next two weeks as SMU still plays Louisville and California.
If UVA, Pittsburgh and SMU are tied, Virginia and SMU would play in the title game thanks to having better records against common opponents.
That’s a long-worded way to say, Cavalier fans should be rooting for Pittsburgh this weekend when the Panthers go to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech.
It’s a lot to keep straight, which is why Chesney advises his team not to try.
“There’s just so much that could still go on,” he said. “I don’t think that’s worth talking about right now. I think the fact that you’re ranked and that there’s a lot of conversation around it, I think that’s excellent. But at the same point in time, we still have two more games left against two really good opponents. And everybody else that’s playing has, I’m sure, two more games against pretty good opponents. So this whole thing could look one way and get flipped right upside down and nothing would come from this.”
