Can Duke make the College Football Playoff? Explaining how Blue Devils are tied to James Madison in CFP

Billy Heyen

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The Duke Blue Devils somehow won a five-way tiebreaker just to get into the ACC Championship game.

With that luck, maybe they can sneak into the College Football Playoff, too.

Or, well, maybe not.

But it's a question that's going to be asked if Duke pulls off an upset of Virginia in Saturday night's ACC title game.

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Can Duke make the College Football Playoff?

Technically, yes, Duke can make the CFP.

Will the Blue Devils make it?

That's a lot less likely.

The College Football Playoff takes the five highest-ranked conference champions. They don't have to be from the power conferences.

In the most recent CFP rankings, Tulane was ranked and so was James Madison. And both of them won their conference titles on Friday night.

Duke, which is 7-5, wasn't ranked.

It seems unlikely the CFP committee would move a five-loss Duke ahead of either of those teams in the rankings.

Most likely, Duke would get left out.

Virginia would get in with a win, but a Duke win likely just does a solid to the JMU Dukes.