The Miami Hurricanes entered the season with sky-high hopes for the 2025 season. After winning the opener against Notre Dame, last year’s National Runners-up, those hopes soared even higher. Every voice
in the CFB universe was talking about the Canes. Features were written. College GameDay came to campus. Awards were earned. Praise was heaped upon the Canes, rightfully, for their repeated excellence. Week after week, the Canes won games and looked like, and were ranked as, one of the best teams in the country while doing so.
Then the Louisville game happened.
Miami played a below-average game, with many self-inflicted, and Louisville created, problems. Constant issues with tackling allowed Louisville to score early and put Miami in comeback mode. After that, Miami fought to get back into the game but they were unable to make that comeback since their own starting quarterback threw a career-high 4 interceptions en route to the first loss of the year.
With that loss went Miami’s undefeated record, and their wiggle room in hopes of making the College Football Playoff. Sure, they have a trio of ranked wins to their record (#6 Notre Dame, #18 USF, #18 Florida State at the time of the games vs Miami), which still leads the country after 8 weeks of the season. Sure, they’ve had many standout performances from players like Rueben Bain Jr., Malachi Toney, C.J. Daniels, and (in 4 of the 5 games before Louisville) Carson Beck. But none of that matters, because Miami lost a game.
Here’s the cold, hard truth: Miami won the only game this regular season where they’ll be an underdog — the opener against Notre Dame. Miami has been, and will be, a favorite in every other game this season, including the game against Louisville. This roster has more talent than any opponent on the schedule, Louisville inclusive, and the expectation is that Miami wins. But, yet again, they found a way to let an inferior team out scheme and out work them, and now Miami will pay the price for it.
The ACC is not at all thought of as a top conference on the level of the Big Ten or SEC. With that being the case, and with yet another loss to an inferior opponent (though admittedly Louisville is probably the best of these teams Miami has lost to), Miami has no wiggle room left if they hope to make the College Football Playoffs this season.
With the loss to Louisville, Miami is no longer in control of their own path to the ACC Championship Game. There are multiple teams undefeated in conference to this point and the pair of Georgia Tech and Virginia have super duper easy paths to an undefeated ACC record. Virginia already beat Louisville, likely their toughest in-conference game, and Georgia Tech only has 4 more ACC games since they end the season with the rivalry game against Georgia. By comparison, Miami still has 6 ACC games left this season.
After losing to Louisville, at home, AGAIN, and with the trio of Georgia Tech, SMU, and Virginia continuing to run through the ACC undefeated, Miami will need help, lots of help, to make it to the ACC Championship game. That is not a barrier for entry into the College Football Playoffs, but 11 regular season wins, and more importantly only 1 regular season loss, is.
If you disagree with me about the absolute and firm need for Miami to have 11 regular season wins to make the College Football Playoffs, look no further than…LAST YEAR. Led by Cam Ward and the #1 offense in America, but failed by a defense so bad the coordinator was fired immediately after the season, Miami went 10-2, with a 6-2 ACC record, missed the ACC Championship Game, and was excluded from the College Football Playoffs. Another loss this season would repeat that scenario exactly. And that is why Miami can’t lose.
Same as last year, but missing the ACC Championship Game and/or the College Football Playoff is, frankly, a failure of a season. Mario Cristobal has repeatedly said the goal is improvement every year, and bemoaned the failure of the Syracuse loss to close last regular season that kept Miami out of major postseason play. 10-2 isn’t good enough, and it’s not a step forward for the program. 11-1 is the only record that matters for Miami.
This is not to say that winning the last 6 games of the year will be easy. Miami has proven that they can play to a level that is best-in-the-country…but they’ve also shown that there are flaws to be exploited, and games they shouldn’t lose, but continually do.
Mario Cristobal has repeatedly stated that every game is a playoff game, and now that is undeniably true. The wiggle room of losing a game is gone after dropping a very winnable game to Louisville, so there’s no choice but to win the rest of the games on the schedule. That is, if Miami has designs of realizing their season goals and not sitting at home while other teams are playing in the College Football Playoffs.
Those are the stakes. Win the rest of the regular season games and likely make the College Football Playoffs, or lose another game and it’s same old song, different season, and back to the drawing board yet again.
So now that we know the stakes there’s only one remaining question: what you got, Miami? I don’t need a response now; the performance of the team on the field over the next 6 Saturdays will be the answer.
