2015 ACC Championship Game

The Clemson Tigers went into the game as the consensus #1 team in the nation after clinching the ACC Atlantic Division title against the Florida State Seminoles on November 7, 2015.

The Tar Heels entered the game ranked #8 in the AP poll and #10 in the CFP poll, having clinched the ACC Coastal Division against Virginia Tech on November 21, 2015.

The 2015 ACC Championship Game marks the third time in the game's history in which the game was considered a sell-out. A record 74,514 tickets were sold for the game. Previous sell-out years were 2010 and 2011. The high number of tickets sold were attributed to the fact that the championship game site was a relatively close distance for both participating schools (and thus a large portion of their fan bases), as well as having two highly ranked teams (Clemson at #1 and UNC at #8) with a single loss between them.[2] The previous three years' games saw large tarps covering parts of the upper deck due to the lack of tickets sold.[3]

Much of the debate around the ACC Championship Game involved scenarios of what would happen in the event the Tar Heels upset the undefeated Tigers. It was assumed that, should Clemson win the game, they would be the top seed in the College Football Playoff, given that they were already ranked #1 by the selection committee going into the game.[4] However, had Clemson lost the game, there were several hypotheses about who the selection committee would select as the top 4 teams to participate in the playoff.[5]

One theory was that if North Carolina were to win the ACC championship, they should be included in the playoff because they only had a single loss on the season (something that others vying for a spot also had) and would have beaten the consensus #1 team in the country at a neutral site. Alternatively, others argued that North Carolina didn't deserve to be in the playoff because of their current rank (#10) in the selection committee poll as well as their relatively weak schedule.[6]

Another theory stated that even with a loss in the ACC Championship Game, Clemson should still be in the playoff. Proponents of this theory argued that Clemson had been widely considered the best team in the country during the latter part of the regular season, and had quality wins against Notre Dame and Florida State. A loss in the championship game would be viewed as a "quality" loss to a top 10 opponent, and a better loss than other one-loss teams in consideration, including North Carolina.[7]

Another possibility was that a loss by Clemson would leave the ACC shut out of the playoff altogether, and either Ohio State or Stanford would take the 4th playoff spot.[8]

Whatever the case, the winner of the championship game would have been guaranteed no worse than a berth in the 2015 Peach Bowl, which hosted the ACC champion if that team was not selected for the College Football Playoff. Had the Tar Heels won that game, it would have been their first appearance in a major bowl since the 1950 Cotton Bowl Classic. Some argue that since Clemson was selected for the Playoff, North Carolina should have gotten the bid to the Peach Bowl instead of Florida State because they had a better record than the Seminoles (11-2 vs. 10-2) and actually went undefeated in conference play with an 8-0 record (Florida State was 6-2 in ACC play with road losses to Georgia Tech and Clemson); neither North Carolina nor Florida State would win their respective bowl games.