When the Louisville Cardinals thrashed Florida State last weekend, there was immediately conversation about a potential tie in the ACC Coastal division.
If Louisville loses to Clemson and then the Tigers go on to lose to the Seminoles, without either team losing another conference game, there would be a three-way tie at the top of the division. If that’s the case, there is no head-to-head tiebreaker, so what would happen?
Well, according to reports, the ACC would determine the Coastal champion with an analytics company.
From Heather Dinich of ESPN.com:
The ACC has partnered with SportSource Analytics, the same company that provides statistics to the College Football Playoff selection committee members.
… The highest-ranked team in the team rating score metric would win the Atlantic Division, and SportSource Analytics would permit the ACC to release the ranking of the teams in the conference in the event it is required to break a tie.
SportSource Analytics explained the team rating score as “a metric that evaluates all facets of on-field team performance that are highly correlated to team success and combines them into a single comparable value.” It combines statistics from offense, defense and special teams and uses “individual statistics that are a mix of raw, tempo-agnostic, opponent-adjusted and efficiency metrics.” Conference and nonconference winning percentages, as well as strength of schedule, also factor into the statistic.
Fair enough.
SportSource Analytics also provides numbers to the College Football Playoff committee, so they have experience determining the most deserving teams — even if people don’t always agree.
What do you think of the ACC’s tiebreaking process? Sound off in the comments section below with your thoughts.
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