Here is Miami’s Complicated Road to the ACC Championship Game

Coastal chaos is back.

After Miami’s 27-10 win over Florida State, the Canes not only moved to 5-4, but also are now 3-3 in the division.

With two winnable games remaining UM could finish 5-3 in the ACC.

So what is their path to winning the division?

Simply put, they have to win out and have Virginia, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina to lose at least once AND Virginia Tech lose twice. Miami owns the head-to-head tiebreakers against the two former teams but loses tiebreakers to the two latter.

Here’s how the easiest path looks:

But that’s a lot to ask with such few games remaining and a lot of mutual battles remaining between those teams.

Let’s dive in:

First off, I’m going to assume both UVA and VT beat Georgia Tech. Because who loses to Georgia Tech, right?

If they don’t, that opens a lot of doors, way too many to get into (even scenarios with an entire division 7-team tie and a 4-4 champion which would be my personal heaven on earth but we’ll get to that later).

Under that “win against GT” assumption, current 4-2 division leader Virginia absolutely would need to lose their game the day after Thanksgiving to Virginia Tech. Again, with Miami owning the head to head win, and both teams at 5-3, the Canes would have the edge.

Pittsburgh is currently second in the standings at 3-2. They don’t have a game this week, but crucially have back-to-back games hosting UNC and going to visit the Hokies before finishing with Boston College. The Pitt-UNC result will change a lot of rooting interests come the end of the year which we’ll get into in a moment, but given Virginia Tech needs to lose twice and one of their games is against GT and another they’d then have to beat UVA, Pitt winning that one is very important.

Moving down the list, next up is UNC who are ahead of Miami due to their win back in September. The Canes definitely need them to lose in order to have any hope. Their remaining conference schedule is the aforementioned game two weeks from now against Pitt and the season finale against NC State. The easiest way to think about it is, whoever wins that Pitt-UNC game, Miami needs them to lose their last game.

Now to Virginia Tech. The team with the most to gain and the most to lose. They seriously can mess this whole thing up. A loss to a “better than you think but still not great” Wake Forest team this weekend would be really nice for the Canes. Then comes Georgia Tech before closing with two huge games against Pitt and UVA. As previously stated, they will need to win that game in Charlottesville if the Yellow Jackets don’t pull off the upset and thus, would need to lose this weekend to the Demon Deacons and the other game to the Panthers.

Bottom line, there’s a lot still available but not a lot of room for error. Not only for Miami, but also for the entire division. It could be simple if the favorites hold serve, or it could get completely crazy.

So let’s get to the good stuff, an all 7-team tie for the ACC Coastal:

Week 11

Miami beats Louisville

GT beats UVA

VaTech beats Wake

Week 12

UNC beats Pitt

GT beats VaTech

Duke beats Cuse

Week 13

Pitt beats VaTech

Wake beats Duke

GT beats NC St

Week 14

Duke beats Miami

VaTech beats UVA

BC beats Pitt

NC St beats UNC

In this unbelievable world, your ACC Coastal Champion…UNC.

Regardless, some men just want to watch the world burn.

Root for chaos.