Miami Hurricanes back in the College Football Playoff fold after a shakeup in the latest rankings on Tuesday night
The Canes’ playoff hopes are substantially stronger this week.
The Miami Hurricanes’ outlook for the playoff after their 26-20 loss to SMU looked pretty bleak, as the Hurricanes came in at 18 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings on November 4.
What a difference a week makes.
Miami moved up to #15 in the latest rankings released on Tuesday night, which made them the highest-ranked team in the ACC after Virginia and Louisville lost. The Canes also leapt Georgia Tech, who was idle last week.
Now, as a result and just for the moment, the Canes are projected as the ACC champion and the 11 seed in the playoff bracket.
Canes in the bracket as projected ACC champion, but will probably have to make the playoff field another way
The Hurricanes’ chances of making the field as the ACC champion despite the projection are slim at this point. With four ACC teams having just one loss and Miami having two, the Canes need more ACC chaos to go their way to qualify for the conference championship game in Charlotte. It could happen a few ways, but they are pretty narrow paths.
Instead, Miami at 15 is in striking range of an at large berth, which would take them getting up to #10 in the rankings in order to make it since two conference champions ranked below them would make it into the field.
There’s still some help that Miami will need to get in order to make it in, and that includes this weekend with Oklahoma losing to Alabama and Texas losing to Georgia. Notre Dame losing to Pitt would be ideal, but probably wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for the Hurricanes, especially since Miami has that head-to-head which could come into play as the Canes creep further up the rankings.
We’ll see how things go this weekend – and Miami will obviously have to do their part, starting on Saturday against NC State – but for now, hope is stronger for Miami’s playoff hopes than it was a week ago.
College Football
Michael Irvin had an eyebrow-raising exchange on the field with Syracuse’s Fran Brown after Miami’s 38-10 win over the Orange
Brown and the Playmaker had a brief interaction on the field following the Canes’ win.
