It was an opener Mario Cristobal and Miami desperately needed to enhance their chances of reaching the College Football Playoff this season for the first time.
For Notre Dame, Sunday night’s 27-24 setback on the road snapped a 10-game regular-season winning streak under Marcus Freeman and makes other opportunities on the schedule — albeit few — extremely important moving forward this fall.
Miami and Notre Damę are included in our Week 2 playoff projections update, but the Fighting Irish’s overall path to another berth after reaching the national championship game in January has weakened. Notre Dame has an open date prior to its home opener later this month against nationally ranked Texas A&M, the only other nationally ranked opponent on its schedule following Boise State’s upset loss to USF last week.
Considering the playoff selection committee’s new schedule strength metric, the lack of quality win opportunities overall for Notre Dame is something to watch for a team whose playoff road is a bit cloudy unless the Fighting Irish win out from here.
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As an independent, they’re battling for one of seven at-large spots in the 12-team bracket. Notre Dame suffered an upset loss to NIU last season early before catching fire but finished with four wins against ranked competition prior to Selection Sunday.
Unless USC and Navy are ranked this season, the Fighting Irish may not have as many chances to strengthen their case if their next game against the Aggies goes awry.
“It was a top-10 fight. Come down to a three-point game versus a hell of a football team,” Freeman said Sunday night, via Irish Illustrated. “Our guys got a lot to… really the confidence to build off of. There’s obviously a lot out there that we didn’t do well, but there are some things we did do well and we got to build on the things that we did well and we got to fix with urgency. The things we didn’t do so well. It’s the first game of the year versus a heck of opponent.”
We’re not giving Notre Dame’s next game against Texas A&M the “must-win” label just yet, but you can bet Freeman knows an 0-2 start would put playoff expectations on life support.
Hurricanes sitting pretty
There’s nothing like a signature win in the national spotlight and Cristobal’s team came through down the stretch after squandering a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter. Miami was dominant in the trenches, got after Notre Dame freshman quarterback C.J. Carr and did a commendable job corralling Jeremiyah Love, whom many consider to be the nation’s top running back.
These are the performances that are remembered by the selection committee, especially if Notre Dame challenges for double-digit wins and improves as the season progresses like most presume.
Miami had a similar start to its 2024 campaign with sights set on a playoff berth before November losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse tanked that plan. The Hurricanes opened with a victory at Florida and used that momentum to start the campaign 9-0 prior to deflating.
Sunday night’s victory is one to keep in the back pocket for Miami. With a showdown against Florida coming in a couple of weeks, a win over the Gators would substantially increased the Hurricanes’ playoff odds before the start of ACC play at Florida State on Oct. 4.
Something to consider about the Hurricanes: No three-loss team that failed to win its conference championship has ever appeared in the playoff. This means Miami could theoretically miss out on a berth in the ACC title game this fall with a 10-2 finish, but as long as the championship finale goes chalk, the Hurricanes would be an attractive second bid from the conference.
Miami does not play Clemson during the regular season. The Tigers were the only ACC team ranked higher — and more talented per the 247Sports Team Talent Composite — than the Hurricanes heading into the opener.
The ACC had two playoff representatives in last year’s first expansion bracket — Clemson as the league champion and runner-up SMU, whose second loss of the campaign came to the Tigers in the league finale.
Ten wins is the magic number for Miami to get to the playoff and the Hurricanes have already conquered one of their toughest opponents on the schedule.
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