Louisville football doesn't need to top Clemson. Being second in ACC should rate CFP bid

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23-07-2025

They're all playing for second place in the ACC football standings behind Clemson. But second place can come with its own reward in the form of an at-large berth in the College Football Playoff.
The ACC put two teams in the inaugural 12-team format of the playoffs, and there's good reason to believe the league will be strong enough to again receive an additional bid outside of its automatic qualifier.
As the schools converge on ACC Kickoff media days from Tuesday through Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Tigers likely will be the overwhelming favorites when the preseason poll is released. Louisville, Miami and SMU are among the teams that potentially pose the biggest challenge to Clemson for the top spot and, by default, a shot at making the CFP.
Florida State could be a wild card after an abysmal 2-10 record last season after going 13-1 in 2023 and being left out of the CFP. And who knows how much the bar will be raised by perhaps the greatest coach in NFL history, as Bill Belichick makes his leap into college football at North Carolina.
There's still a lot of ground that has to be made up between the rest of the league and the Tigers.
Clemson returns 80% of its roster from last season's team that won the ACC championship. And historically, in this conference, when the Tigers have the talent, they win.
Eight of the last 10 ACC championships have gone to coach Dabo Swinney and Clemson, and that includes a 75-3 record against league foes at home since the start of that championship run in 2015.
Miami had a chance to stomp out the remaining embers of the Tigers' title dominance. The Hurricanes just needed to win their regular-season finale at Syracuse to make it three of the past four seasons with an ACC champ not named Clemson.
That's the thing with the Tigers, they have to be finished off, not assumed to be done. Much of the narrative that Clemson was vulnerable was generated by its 34-3 season-opening loss to Georgia.
The Tigers still won their regular-season conference games by an average of 18.8 points. Thanks to Syracuse's upset over Miami, Swinney came away with his ninth league title by beating SMU.
There's at least one team that won't be intimidated by Clemson's history after having made a little of its own last season. Louisville defeated the Tigers for the first time in nine tries, handing them their lone loss in the league last season.
U of L coach Jeff Brohm is 1-0 in his only meeting against Swinney and the Tigers. The Cardinals claimed their best win of 2024 by going into Death Valley and winning convincingly 33-21.
That will give the Cards confidence as the Tigers visit L&N Stadium on Nov. 14 for a Friday night prime-time matchup on ESPN.
What could help U of L this season is exactly what hurt it last — the league's scheduling. SMU went undefeated in the league partly because it didn't play Clemson or Miami in the regular season. The Canes didn't play the Tigers, either.
What they all had in common was Louisville, which was the only team to play each of the top three schools in the standings. If those same schools are all lurking near the top this season, they at least have some head-to-head meetings.
The Cards will again play all three, including SMU and Miami on the road. The Mustangs will also play Clemson and Miami. Although the Canes and Tigers won't play each other, the schedule is more well-rounded for the schools that figure to be contenders.
To be clear, they're contending for second place behind Clemson, but if it gets your favorite team in the playoffs, there won't be much complaining on how they got there.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at [e-mail], follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville football could rate CFP shot even if it can't top Clemson