By acing its challenging early-season nonconference schedule, Miami has built up enough credit to absorb its first loss of the season and still be the ACC’s most likely College Football Playoff team.
The No. 2 Hurricanes (5-1, 1-1 ACC) were upset 24-21 at home by Louisville on Friday night. The Cardinals picked off Carson Beck four times, the capper in the final minute with Miami in range to attempt a tying field goal.
The loss complicates Miami’s path to the ACC title game because it now gives Louisville (5-1, 2-1) a tiebreaker advantage and the Hurricanes don’t play three other ACC contenders: No. 12 Georgia Tech, Duke and Virginia.
But with all their toughest opponents behind them, the Canes still have a good chance to run the table and reach the Playoff.
According to Austin Mock’s projections for The Athletic, Miami’s CFP odds stood at 89 percent immediately following the Louisville game, down from 97 percent before Week 8 began. Louisville’s chances jumped to 23 percent.
Heading into Saturday, the next-best Playoff odds among ACC teams belonged to unbeaten Georgia Tech (6-0, 3-0) at 31 percent. The Yellow Jackets play a pivotal game Saturday against Duke (4-2, 3-0), which is unbeaten in ACC play. The winner of the game will take a big step forward in the ACC and CFP races.
Miami began the season by beating Notre Dame at home and followed that up with home victories against No. 19 USF and Florida. The Hurricanes also beat ACC rival Florida State in Tallahassee. Few teams in the country have had a more challenging first-half schedule than Miami, including Louisville, which has been on the fringe of the AP Top 25.
Down the stretch, Miami’s schedule lightens up, starting next week with struggling Stanford making the cross-country trip to Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
Road trips to SMU (4-2, 2-0 entering Saturday’s game at Clemson) and Pitt (4-2, 2-1 before playing at Syracuse) are Miami’s toughest remaining challenges. The Hurricanes also have home games against NC State and Syracuse and a road game against Virginia Tech. Those teams were a combined 9-11 overall and 3-6 in the ACC entering Saturday.
Miami remaining schedule
Oct. 25
98%
Nov. 1
74%
Nov. 8
94%
Nov. 15
90%
Nov. 22
91%
Nov. 29
71%
Miami odds to win via Austin Mock’s projections as of Saturday morning.
Win out to go 11-1, and Miami should be fine to grab an at-large spot in the 12-team CFP. Slip up again and go 10-2, and it could get tricky for the Canes — similar to last year, when they were left out at 10-2 after failing to reach the conference title game.
Miami has now relinquished control of its path to the ACC title game. If Miami finishes the regular-season 10-2, with another upset loss, it again could get locked out of the conference championship, which it has never won since joining the league in 2004, closing a path to earning one of five bids that go to the highest-ranked conference champions.
Last year, Clemson became college football’s first bid-stealer by winning the ACC title game to earn a spot in the 12-team field when it would have been left out if it lost to SMU for the ACC championship
A lone loss to Louisville is not likely to doom Miami’s Playoff hopes, but the 17-team ACC’s unbalanced schedule could help narrow its margin of error the rest of the way.
“When you play a really good team and you play in conference football, the margins are really small,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “One-possession games reign supreme during this time. And if you give away plays, it’s gonna get you. And tonight it got us.”
Miami’s loss also impacted the Playoff odds of No. 13 Notre Dame, which lost to the Hurricanes and Texas A&M to open the season and saw its chances drop from 71 percent to 60 percent heading into its game Saturday against No. 20 USC.
