When it came down to the selection for the 12 teams for the College Football Playoff last month, the biggest question was who was going to be the final team in the field, Miami or Notre Dame? If it ended up being the Irish, then that would mean that the ACC was going to be shut out of the field.
You might ask why the ACC would have been shut out of the field if the conference champs automatically make the field? Well, the Hurricanes didn't even make the ACC Championship Game. That was between Duke and Virginia.