Here's what happens if Clemson, Louisville, Florida State all tie in the ACC Atlantic

The ACC will use a third-party rating system to determine the winner in a three-team tie

Louisville struck first, that's where the story of the 2016 ACC title race will start when this season is reviewed in future years. The Cardinals had a winning conference record in each of their two seasons as ACC members but it wasn't until Saturday, when Louisville thumped FSU at home, that Bobby Petrino had a win against an ACC Atlantic power.

Florida State and Clemson have traded the ACC Atlantic back and forth since 2009. Four times the Seminoles have represented the division in the ACC title game, three times it's been Clemson, including in 2015. Every year since 2011 the Atlantic Division champion has gone on to win the title and represent the ACC in the postseason. The two-team dominance in the ACC has been disrupted by Louisville, and it's only taken three seasons for Bobby Petrino to get the players in place to take a run at the kings.

Florida State and Clemson's two-team dominance made tiebreakers easy; winner of the regular season matchup goes to the title game. But now that a third contender has emerged, the ACC bylaws have to be revisited for the first time since the ACC Coastal chaos campaign of 2014.

Step one:

If Louisville, Clemson and Florida State all finish the season tied at 7-1 or 6-2, the first tiebreaker will be the best record against the other two. If all three teams are 1-1 (Louisville loses to Clemson in Death Valley, Florida State beats Clemson in Tallahassee), then results are compared against the team in the Atlantic with the next-best conference record.

Step two:

If all three teams are still tied, the procedure continues with records against common non-divisional opponents (there are none for all three), record against all non-divisional opponents and then -- here's the real mind-bender -- a comparison of winning percentage against "common non-divisional opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference winning percentage) and proceeding through other common non-divisional opponents based upon their divisional order of finish."

Step three:

If for some reason all three teams are still tied (the three-team tiebreakers kick into a two-team head-to-head tiebreaker as soon as one team is eliminated), then it would come down to the BCS rankings, according to league rules. Since the BCS rankings are defunct and the College Football Playoff rankings will be released on Tuesday, Nov. 29, four days before the championship game on Saturday, the ACC needs a new rating system as it's end-all be-all tiebreaker.

The answer is a partnership with SportSource Analytics, the good people who run CFBStats.com and provide private college football data analysis services. SportSource Analytics will provide the ACC with a Team Rating Score that will take over as the last tiebreaker.

"The decision to change our tiebreaker from utilizing the CFP ranking to the Team Rating Score was based on the reality that we're not in a position to wait until Tuesday night to determine a division champion that's going to participate in Saturday's championship game," ACC senior associate commissioner Michael Strickland told ESPN's Heather Dinich. "This summer, our athletic directors unanimously decided to insert this metric as the seventh and final step before a blind draw."

SportSource Analytics also provides information to the College Football Playoff selection committee, though Team Rating Score is not a metric given to committee members and not one made available on CFBStats.com, though they are willing to "leave the door open" to opening it up for a "low cost consumer market."