MIAMI — The Power 4 conference that didn’t get its champion into the College Football Playoff has a team that tied for second playing in the CFP’s national title game.So much for the demise of the Atlantic Coast Conference.The league that looked most vulnerable a few short years ago when the latest round of realignment shook up college sports is doing just fine.The best proof comes out of Miami, a second-place finisher in the ACC that plays Indiana in the title game Monday. It’s a turn of events that, at least for now, has left in the rearview mirror the playoff rejection of ACC champion Duke.“It’s been about creativity and innovation on the business side of sports, as well as in the area that has connections with competition,” commissioner Jim Phillips said in explaining what has worked over the past few tumultuous years.To reset, Duke won a convoluted tiebreaker to emerge from a five-way tie for second and make the ACC title game, then beat Virginia there. But because the Blue Devils had five losses and were unranked, they got passed over by 24th-ranked Sun Belt champion James Madison for the fifth and final automatic-qualifying spot in the 12-team bracket.It was something of a black eye for a conference that was, for decades, known for basketball, but through expansion moves of its own along with the steady success of either Florida State or Clemson, has cultivated a more-than-respectable resume as a football conference.In this case, it was Miami — once a big, brash name in coll …
