How will Hurricanes respond to first loss? ‘Go back to work and go get better’
The Miami Hurricanes’ road to both a spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game and the 12-team College Football Playoff just got a little tougher.
That happens after a loss, especially a 24-21 defeat to the Louisville Cardinals like they had on Friday in which they were a double-digit favorite but never led and saw a fourth-quarter comeback bid end with quarterback Carson Beck throwing his fourth interception of the night with less than a minute left and the team in range for a potential game-tying field goal.
“After having some really good performances and working really, really hard at practice,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said, “that’s really disappointing.”
“It was a heartbreaker,” added safety Zechariah Poyser, whose fourth-quarter fumble recovery with Miami down by 11 helped start the late rally attempt.
How Miami (5-1, 1-1 ACC), which dropped seven spots to No. 9 in the latest AP poll on Sunday, responds from this loss will tell the story of the rest of their season.
Even though the defeat stings, all the Hurricanes’ goals are still there for the taking. They’re far from out of contention if they can make Friday a one-game blip in the radar and not a defeat that festers into something more.
That will be perhaps the Hurricanes’ biggest test of all the rest of the way.
“We’re all pissed. We’re all upset, but sitting around and being pissed is not going to do anything about it,” Cristobal said. “And just because you’re upset about a performance, you better go out and do something about it. And that’s got to be the complete commitment of everybody. There’s no B.S.ing, there’s no excuse-making. There’s no time to sit around and do anything but go back to work and go get better. That’s what it takes. That’s what real men do. And that’s what we have to do. That’s what we’re going to do.”
The Miami Hurricanes’ place in the national landscape
That said, the Hurricanes are still in a pretty good place despite the loss.
After all, UM wasn’t the only undefeated team to fall. The Ole Miss Rebels, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Memphis Tigers and UNLV Rebels all also dropped their first game of the season this week.
That leaves just six total undefeated teams left in college football: the Ohio State Buckeyes and Indiana Hoosiers of the Big Ten, Texas A&M Aggies of the Southeastern Conference, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets of the Atlantic Coast Conference, BYU Cougars of the Big 12 and Navy Midshipmen of the American Conference.
Parity across the sport is probably Miami’s best friend right now.
These aren’t the days of the BCS Championship when only the top two teams at the end of the regular season are in play for the national championship. Or even the first decade of the College Football Playoff when only the top four teams get in.
With 12 slots available — five going to the highest ranked conference champions and seven to the remaining highest-ranked teams — Miami is still firmly in the mix for the CFP.
And even with the loss, the Hurricanes’ resume is pretty solid at this point. They have wins over three ranked teams at the time of the game in Notre Dame on Aug. 31, USF on Sept. 13 and Florida State on Sept. 27 and their one defeat was by one score albeit against a team that was unranked.
Miami doesn’t face a ranked team the rest of the way in the regular season. The Hurricanes’ final six opponents, all in conference play: Stanford at home Saturday, at SMU on Nov. 1, home against Syracuse on Nov. 8, home against N.C. State on Nov. 15, at Virginia Tech on Nov. 22 and at Pittsburgh on Nov. 29.
Every one of those teams already has two losses.
And every one of those teams now can theoretically end Miami’s playoff chances.
“It’s a good thing that we play 12 games and not just one,” Beck said.
The Miami Hurricanes’ place in the ACC landscape
As for Miami’s conference standing, things are a bit murkier now.
The ACC still has three teams undefeated in league play in Georgia Tech, Virginia and SMU. The only regular season matchup featuring two of any of those three teams or the Hurricanes is the Miami-SMU game on Nov. 1.
So for Miami to have a chance at reaching the ACC Championship Game on Dec. 6 in Charlotte, it will likely need to run the table and then, at minimum, see at least one loss from Virginia or Georgia Tech down the stretch.
There are eight total teams in the league with no more than one conference loss, so the field theoretically remains pretty wide open.
“When you play really good teams and you’re playing conference football, the margins are really small,” Cristobal said. “One-possession games reign supreme at this time of year, and if you give away plays, it’s going to get you. ... Lessons have to be learned, and we have to go do something about it. Talking about it ain’t gonna do anything.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM.
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