The conference championship games threatened to ruin their own future depending on the College Football Playoff selections on Sunday.
The SEC is the prime example of this, but the ACC has a lowkey role in this, too.
Alabama lost in convincing fashion to Georgia in the SEC's showcase game on Saturday.
But the Crimson Tide didn't move from last week to this, staying No. 9 in the CFP Rankings.
The committee didn't punish Alabama for playing an extra game and then losing.
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How about the ACC?
Miami is in the field as the No. 10 team, leapfrogging Notre Dame, who the Hurricanes beat in the first week of the season.
The 'Canes didn't even play in the ACC final due to some weird tiebreaker rules.
But the committee did the ACC a solid. The league may have had to consider a drastic overhaul to its process if it got shut out of the field entirely after Duke won Saturday night but wasn't ranked high enough to get in.
Instead, the committee let Miami in. And the ACC can breathe a deep sigh of relief.
Conference championship games, for the power conferences, don't feel the same that they did back in the day.
But they're staying put for now. The committee made sure of that.
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