CHARLOTTE — Dabo Swinney stared into an ESPN camera to deliver a warning to the College Football Playoff selection committee, not about his team, but about the one his team just beat.

“Listen,” he said, “this is a playoff football team. SMU better be in the damn playoffs.”

It’s not often that immediately after a heartbreaking victory, a coach not only praises his opponent, but also stands up for him. But on Saturday night, in this new, strange playoff expansion world, that’s exactly what happened right here, just before the clock struck midnight on the East Coast.

The story that night was supposed to be how Clemson won the ACC championship game: in a wild, furious final few seconds, at the feet of freshman kicker Nolan Hauser, a Charlotte metro native whose title game set up a 56-yard field goal As time expired, the uprights split, sparking an orange eruption at Bank of America Stadium.

But there’s another story here, perhaps one that’s more important: With its 34-31 victory over SMU, Clemson became the first-ever College Football Playoff bid thief. For some teams – SMU or Alabama – the bubble has burst. And the ACC’s football dynasty – the Clemson Tigers – has secured a playoff spot that seemed unlikely just a week ago.

Beaten up by Georgia early in the season, whipped by Louisville midway through the season, and beaten at home by South Carolina just last week, Dabo’s Tigers couldn’t possibly make the playoffs, right?

Here they are. Swinney is back in football’s newly expanded Big Dance. The Tigers (10-3) will clinch the final of the five automatic bids set aside for the five top-seeded conference champions. We think. We won’t know for sure until around noon ET on Sunday when the picks are revealed on ESPN.

There’s a good chance Swinney’s group will be No. 11 or 12 when a first-round game is played on the road against several options, including Notre Dame, Penn State and Texas.

Things are a little more exciting at SMU. Are the Mustangs still on the field? As the No. 8 seed heading into this game, there was one thing they had to avoid Saturday: having the doors kicked in. At halftime they were standing around the clock and it looked like the doors were about to be kicked down. Unfortunately for coach Rhett Lashlee, the Ponies stormed back with a wild second-half effort that rested largely on the shoulders of quarterback Kevin Jennings and his 31 completions and 304 yards.

They roared back, tying the game with 16 seconds left and seemingly sending it into overtime before some wild events ensued: Clemson’s Adam Randall chose the perfect time for his biggest kick return of the year, a 41-yard 17th. scored one-yard completion to put the Tigers in position for the 56-yarder as the seconds ticked away.

heart palpitations. Heartbreaking.

Left out. Rewarding.

And now, back in Dallas, not far from the SMU campus, the selection committee’s Saturday night and Sunday morning — when it makes its final selection — just got a lot more interesting.

You have two teams for one place:

– an 11-2 ACC runner-up with zero top-25 wins and a 75th-ranked schedule with two losses to top-20 teams.

– a 9-3 SEC fourth seed with two wins in the top 15, a strength of 18th, with two losses to unranked opponents.

At No. 8 and already in the projected field ahead of the title game, SMU finds itself in a precarious and precedent-setting position: Will the committee disappear from the playoff field as the loser of the championship game?

Such a move could pave the way for the elimination of conference title games in this expanded playoff world, as ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips (and others) have suggested.

He emphasized this again on Saturday evening: “It would have dangerous consequences for the sport to reward teams that do not have to play an additional game,” he said in a statement.

The SMU argument has many reasons. While a number of playoff contenders sat at home Saturday — Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Alabama — SMU played an extra game. Why should it be punished? And there’s the game two weeks ago when Alabama lost 24-3 at 6-6 Oklahoma, one of the ugliest losses of any playoff contender.

Then again, there’s the other side of the people in Tuscaloosa: The Mustangs were beaten on a neutral field by a three-loss team beaten by SEC champion Georgia and SEC fifth-ranked South Carolina.

SMU can look to itself for Saturday. In the first half alone, the Mustangs turned over twice, dropped three passes and committed three crucial 15-yard penalties that put them in that 17-point hole.

But their comeback cannot be ignored, said Lashlee, who passionately defended his club and its playoff chances.

“I think they showed their championship strength by fighting back,” he said.

“It would be criminal if we weren’t there. It would be wrong not only for our team, but for what college football stands for,” he said. “We couldn’t have shown up (to the ACC championship game), and based on what we saw Tuesday night (in the standings), we would have been there. We showed it. We should be there. They know we should be there.”

Speaking at the postgame press conference, Lashlee said his team was struggling in the locker room not just with the loss but also with the possibility of being eliminated from the playoffs: “Their faith in the system is shaken.”

In many ways, the SMU-Bama debate boils down to an SEC vs. ACC debate. Last year, the SEC won that debate in one of the most controversial decisions (Alabama over Florida State) in CFP history.

On Saturday evening and into the early hours of Sunday morning, the 13-member selection committee will meet to decide such matters in its spacious conference room at the Gaylord Texan, a resort in suburban Dallas.

Six athletic directors, four former coaches, two former players and one former media member will decide the fate of the Ponies and the Tide. But there’s a lot more to discuss, some key decisions that will give committee members anxiety as they sip their free ice cream:

– How will they seed the other championship game losers, Penn State and Texas, compared to Notre Dame and Ohio State? Remember, Penn State lost at home to Ohio State and Texas has zero top-25 wins this season.

– Will Arizona State jump ahead of Boise State at No. 3?

– Will Clemson jump ahead of Arizona State for the No. 4 seed and a first-round bye? The Tigers finished 17th and the Sun Devils 15th this weekend.

Decisions, decisions.

But the most important of these could set a precedent related to conference championship games for years to come.

Will SMU fall completely out of the field?

In October, the CFP’s new executive director, Rich Clark, was asked how the committee would handle losers in conference championship games.

“Well,” he said, “it depends on what the loss looks like.”

This is what it looked like: The game-winning 56-yard field goal from 58 yards wouldn’t have been good.