What needs to go right for the Hurricanes to make the College Football Playoff
As recently as three weeks ago, the Miami Hurricanes appeared to be a shoo-in for the 12-team College Football Playoff. They were off to a 5-0 start, had three wins over ranked teams at the time of the matchup and looked like one of college football’s more complete teams in a season filled with parity.
With a relatively easy schedule remaining, all the Hurricanes needed to do was not get in their own way.
About that...
Miami has since lost two of its past three games, falling 24-21 to Louisville on Oct. 17 and then 26-20 to SMU in overtime on Saturday.
Now, barring an unexpected miracle, the Hurricanes’ chances of making the field is in the hands of the playoff selection committee.
Where Miami actually stands in the selection committee’s eyes will be known for the first time Tuesday when it unveils its first of six weekly rankings at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
But the Hurricanes, ranked No. 18 in Sunday’s AP top 25 poll, will all-but-assuredly be on the outside looking in at that point.
That sets up a month of must-win games and playing wait and see with how the rest of the college football landscape shakes out.
What the models say
While things look bleak for Miami, the Hurricanes aren’t completely out of the playoff picture just yet.
The Athletic’s projection model gives the Hurricanes a 15% chance of making the 12-team field now after being projected to have a 97% chance of making it before the Louisville game.
ESPN’s playoff predictor gives Miami just a 14% chance of getting into the playoff. Those odds increase to 27% if Miami wins out in the regular season to go 10-2 but doesn’t reach the ACC Championship Game. If it makes it to the conference title game but loses, its odds fall to 1% as a three-loss nonconference champion.
Most every other national site still has Miami on the bubble, but that bubble has close to a dozen teams with a lot still to be sorted out during the final four weeks of the season.
Miami’s path
The only guaranteed way for Miami to make the field is to win the ACC Championship Game. The five highest-ranked conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the field, with the remaining seven spots going to the next seven highest-ranked teams in the committee’s rankings.
But Miami, with two ACC losses, is behind six teams — Virginia, which is undefeated in league play; and five teams with one conference loss in Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, Louisville, SMU and Duke — for those two spots in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Dec. 6. Even then, getting to the conference championship game and losing would all but ensure Miami misses the playoff.
For Miami to have a chance to any of this to happen, it first must win its final four games — Saturday at home against Syracuse, Nov. 15 at home against N.C. State, Nov. 22 at Virginia Tech and Nov. 29 at Pittsburgh.
After that, the Hurricanes will still need plenty of help.
Notable games to watch
Assuming Miami wins out (and at this point that is a big assuming), these are among the key games featuring teams above or near Miami in the AP poll that are worth monitoring that would factor into UM’s bid for an at-large spot in the playoff field.
Those games, in chronological order (with rankings being where the teams are in the AP poll this week):
▪ Saturday: No. 8 BYU at No. 9 Texas Tech and No. 3 Texas A&M at No. 19 Missouri — BYU-Texas Tech a battle between the top teams in the Big 12. BYU is undefeated at 8-0. Texas Tech is 8-1 and 5-1 in league play. A Texas Tech loss would mean every team in the conference outside of BYU has two losses. Meanwhile, Texas A&M is undefeated and Missouri, with two losses, is holding on for dear life and needs an upset win to keep its hopes alive.
▪ Nov. 15: No. 13 Texas at No. 5 Georgia, No. 11 Oklahoma at No. 4 Alabama, No. 10 Notre Dame at Pittsburgh, and No. 12 Virginia at Duke — Texas and Oklahoma each have two losses already. A third puts both in an uphill battle. Notre Dame’s game at Pittsburgh, meanwhile, might be the best chance for a third Fighting Irish loss considering Notre Dame’s other games down the stretch are against Navy, Syracuse and Stanford. Meanwhile, Virginia’s game at Duke is probably its toughest matchup left in the regular season.
▪ Nov. 22: No. 20 USC at No. 6 Oregon, Pittsburgh at No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 19 Missouri at No. 11 Oklahoma and Louisville at SMU — USC has two losses and like Miami needs to run the table to make the field. Georgia Tech’s loss to NC State on Saturday makes the ACC picture even murkier. There’s potential for Missouri and Oklahoma to be a game between SEC teams with two losses and therefore a de facto elimination game. And Louisville’s most notable game left on the docket is its ACC finale on the road against SMU.
▪ Nov. 28: No. 5 Georgia at No. 16 Georgia Tech and No. 3 Texas A&M at No. 13 Texas — The final week of the regular season gives Georgia Tech its only true chance for a quality win, while Texas A&M-Texas has the potential to either cement the Aggies’ spot in the playoffs or add to the chaos if the Longhorns pull off the upset.
▪ Nov. 29: No. 1 Ohio State at No. 21 Michigan and No. 23 Tennessee at No. 15 Vanderbilt — Michigan would need an upset of Ohio State for a second consecutive year to remain alive for the playoffs. Meanwhile, Tennessee has three losses and no true quality win, and Vanderbilt can’t afford a third loss.
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