How do they rank the acc? By what the committee ranks teams or by acc play?
Michael Strickland, the league's senior associate commissioner of football operations: "We have foundational selection guidelines and parameters, but as long as those parameters are followed, our bowl partners make the ultimate selections," he said. "We have no authority as the ACC to say, 'You must take this team because we said so.' We intentionally did not want to secure that."
The Orange Bowl, which usually welcomes the ACC champion (Unless ACC Champ is in CFP)
The Russell Athletic Bowl has first choice (vs. Big 12, unless Big Ten is selected to participate in Orange Bowl, in which case ACC No. 1 goes to Citrus Bowl and ACC No. 2 goes to Russell Athletic Bowl.)
After that comes a group of four bowls that decide their ACC teams together: the Belk, Sun, Pinstripe and either the Taxslayer or Music City bowls. (Strickland said those bowls decide among themselves which schools they will take, making "a collective decision" that gives them some flexibility to arrange more attractive matchups.)
The ACC's next tier of bowls — the Military, Indepedence and Quick Lane bowls — make the same kind of group decision when picking from the remaining teams.
