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Duke’s ACC Championship and the Chaos It Creates

Originally posted on Last Word On Sports
By Tony Siracusa | Last updated Dec 7, 2025 2:10 AM ET

A season of chaos in the ACC turned crazy Saturday night in Charlotte. Duke upset the top team in the conference, Virginia, 27-20 in overtime. Duke’s win throws the conference’s College Football Playoff future for this season into tremendous tumult.

A Crazy End

Duke’s Luke Mergott intercepted a Chandler Morris pass in overtime after the Blue Devils had gone up by a touchdown to secure the win.

After being behind the entire game, Virginia tied it at 20-20 by going 96 yards on 10 plays in just 1:22. That sent the game into the first overtime in ACC Championship game history. In overtime, Duke had the ball fourth and goal from the one-yard line. Quarterback Darian Mensah rolled to his right and completed the short pass in the front of the end zone to Jeremiah Hasley for the score.

Virginia was called for roughing the passer on the play and had to start its possession at the 40-yard line. Morris threw the interception, and Duke won the outright conference championship for the first time in 62 years.

An Unknown Future

The Duke win throws the ACC’s potential for this year’s college football playoff into question. It is widely assumed that with five losses, the 8-5 Blue Devils, even as conference champions, are not going to leapfrog 2-3 loss teams to get in. If Duke does not get in, it lessens the odds for Miami, which, while ranked on the fringes of the 12-team playoffs, may not get put in over a conference champion that does not make it. The loss also makes Virginia, which would have been a playoff team with the win, a bowl team, and puts downward pressure on the rest of the conference, potentially bumping everyone down a game or two.

Diaz Advocates

Duke head coach Manny Diaz made a case for Duke being in the playoff as the ACC champion. “They [the playoff committee members] have new information,” Diaz said after the game. “No one should make a decision off incomplete information, which is why I always feel like the weekly polls are kind of a farce anyway. Now the full resume, the full information is available.”

Diaz also said winning the championship of a Power Four conference should always be a deciding factor. “The ACC conference champion should go to the college football playoff this year and every year.”

The Other Side

It’s theorized that if no one from the ACC makes it, that opens the door for a second G5 conference champion. Tulane will make it the highest-rated G5 conference champion. James Madison would likely be next in line.

Diaz made his comparative pitch. “I’m not going to take anything away from James Madison’s season. They had a really good season. But I’m watching them play Troy at home last night. And Troy had a backup quarterback in for most of the game. And it’s a three-point game until really the last few moments of the game when they were able to pull away,” he said. “Which is important. They won the game, they won their conference. But you just can’t compare going through the Sun Belt this year. The Sun Belt has been a really good conference in years past. But most of their top teams are just having down years. So they are probably not challenged the way they would be going through a normal Sun Belt season.”

With so much on the line in a trickle-down impact for so many schools, the game was likely fraying on a lot of nerves from the beginning.

The Back And Forth

Duke scored on its opening. It was a touchdown drive that took 16 plays and ran 9:38 off the clock to go 75 yards. Mensah completed a short pass to Hasley, who took it in from 12 yards out for the 7-0 lead. The length of time on the drive made it the longest drive in ACC Championship game history.

Virginia tied the game in the second quarter. Chandler completed a short pass to J’mari Taylor, who juked his way through several Duke defenders from 11 yards out for the touchdown.

Duke answered in the second quarter with another 75-play scoring drive. This one took “only” 13 plays and burned 8:02 off the clock, making it the second-longest scoring drive in terms of the clock in ACC championship history.

Virginia got a 24-yard field goal from Will Bettridge to make it 14-10. It took Virginia 7:41 to get that field goal. Yes, that was the third-longest scoring drive in ACC championship history.

The Final Moments

Duke got a third-quarter field goal from Todd Pelino from 25 yards out to take a 17-10 lead. Pelino kicked another from 23 yards out in the fourth quarter for a 20-10 lead. With the way Duke was killing the clock, it looked insurmountable for Virginia. But the Cavaliers got a 42-yard field goal from Bettridge to make it 20-13.

And then came the drive that went 96 yards to tie the game to send it into overtime, before Duke won it in overtime just before midnight in Charlotte.

What’s Next

With the post-game interviews to be handled, the press box is still half full of reporters at nearly 2 am. So, as you awaken from your slumber, we will start to have a better sense of the post game picture. Last Word’s Kevin McGuffey will have one final prognostication on the bowl layout, using his best sourcing, before everything is announced in the afternoon on the East Coast.

This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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