Kevin McGuire, Nittany Lions WireSun, November 30, 2025 at 7:07 AM UTC·2 min readFormer Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, against almost all odds, has a chance to bring an ACC championship to Duke. In doing so, Diaz and the Blue Devils would crash the College Football Playoff with five losses.
Yes, thanks to a series of tiebreakers in the ACC and a bizarre set of results falling in Duke's favor on the final weekend of the regular season. Those results included Duke taking care of Wake Forest, Pittsburgh losing at home to Miami, and SMU losing on the road to Cal late Saturday evening. Duke won out on a five-team tiebreaker by having a higher conference opponent winning percentage than Miami, SMU, Pitt, and Georgia Tech.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd because of all of that, Diaz and Duke will take on Virginia in next week's ACC Championship Game in Charlotte, North Carolina. Just as we all predicted!
A victory in the ACC championship game against Virginia would give Duke an automatic spot in the College Football Playoff despite not even being ranked in the top 25 of the playoff committee's rankings. The College Football Playoff changed part of the seeding process this year by going wiht striaght seeding and not requiring the top four seeds to be a conference champion. But the top five conference champions still receive an automatic spot in the field.
The Big Ten champion (Ohio State or Indiana), SEC champion (Georgia or Alabama), and Big 12 champion (Texas Tech or BYU) will all be in great shape for a secured spot in the playoff. But two spots in the field are going to be awarded to teams that will likely be sitting outside of the top 12 of the committee's rankings. The ACC champion will be either No. 18 Virginia or Duke (Virginia should be able to move up at least one spot this week with No. 15 Michigan losing this week). And the American is the most likely conference to get a spot with No. 24 Tulane facing 11-1 but unranked North Texas in the American conference title game.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementDiaz could still be a coaching candidate to keep an eye on as Penn State's coaching search continues. While Penn State awaits its bowl destination, expect the Penn State coaching search to take off in the coming days now that the regular season is in the books.
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This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Manny Diaz and Duke make surprising trip to ACC Championship Game
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