The Clemson Tigers gained the ACC championship on Friday night time in thrilling vogue, beating SMU, 34-31, on a walk-off 56-yard field goal.
That win not solely places Clemson within the School Soccer Playoff, nevertheless it additionally creates some potential havoc down the bracket and will have huge implications for the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Alabama was within the 12-team subject after the newest rankings on Tuesday night time, however there was nothing snug about its placement. Because the Crimson Tide weren’t taking part in in a convention championship sport of their very own, their best path to safe a playoff spot was going to be for SMU to defeat Clemson within the ACC sport.
Or, maybe, hope that Clemson beat SMU so soundly and so emphatically that it’d trigger the committee to drop it beneath Alabama within the closing rating.
Neither occurred.
Not solely did a three-loss Clemson staff win the ACC to leapfrog Alabama within the subject, however SMU performed so nicely and made the sport so shut that it will be virtually unattainable for the committee to disregard it.
Alabama’s argument goes to be the identical as it’s for each borderline SEC staff.
“We play within the SEC, and the SEC is the most effective convention, and meaning one thing.”
Or one thing alongside these traces.
Whereas that could be true, taking a three-loss Alabama staff that didn’t even attain its personal convention title sport over a two-loss SMU staff that was a subject purpose away from beating Clemson can be fairly a leap for the committee, particularly when two of these three losses for Alabama got here in opposition to a 6-6 Vanderbilt staff and a 6-6 Oklahoma staff.
Clemson did what it wanted to do on Saturday by successful its convention title sport.
SMU ought to have finished sufficient by making it a sport and taking it to the wire, going into the postseason with simply two losses.
Alabama had an opportunity to do what it wanted to do in opposition to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. It failed. It has no one responsible however itself if it misses the 12-team subject on Sunday.
