On Tuesday night, the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee released the second installment of its rankings for the 2025 season.
After a blowout win over Syracuse, Miami started the arduous task of climbing their way up the rankings and into a potential at-large berth spot for the Playoff bracket.
The Full CFP rankings, including the first few teams on the outside looking in. Miami, by virtue of being the highest ranked ACC team at present, is IN THE BRACKET PROJECTION!
There’s a lot going on here. Miami will need to win out to get to 10-2 and put themselves in position for a CFP berth, but that path is now wide open after Georgia Tech, Louisville, and Virginia all lost conference games last week.
Last week I wrote that the situation was less “win and you’re in” (and Miami couldn’t even do that), and instead “win and hope other teams mess up to help cover for your previous failures”. Luckily for Miami, they both won AND had other teams mess up and lose last week, and that’s changed the scenario in a big way for the Canes.
According to our friends at FanDuel Sportsbook, Miami started the season at +4000 to win the National Championship. That number fell to +2200 and +1600 through the month of September, hitting a low of +900 after Miami beat Florida State. Following the 2nd loss of the year at SMU, Miami’s odds ballooned to +12,500 last week.
With the blowout win over Syracuse, Miami’s odds to win the National Championship have improved slightly from last week. The current number: Miami +10000. These odds are tied with Michigan and Vanderbilt as we head into week 13.
There are a couple of things working in Miami’s favor looking forward. First, Notre Dame is still ranked highly (unconscionably at #9 compared to Miami’s #15), but that win over the Irish holds weight. ND plays Pitt this week, and Miami has to hope against hope that the Panthers can pull off the upset to move ND out of the way.
Next, USF is back in the bracket as the highest ranked Group of 5 projected champion. USF was as good as gone from here after blowing a big 2nd half lead at Memphis a few weeks ago, but Memphis lost last week and USF moves back up. Again, this is a team that Miami demolished back in September and that helps boost the Canes’ stature.
If you thought these games were impactful in the past, this has reached critical levels now. There are 3 games to go in this regular season. The job for Miami is the same now as it was previously: go win them all. With this improved ranking, and teams ahead of them losing games that needed to happen, the door is open for the Canes to make the CFP in a way that it hasn’t been since the Stanford game.
There is literally nothing else to do but go win, and you’re likely in.
So let’s win, huh?
