Hurricanes’ No. 1 CFP spot may hide a problem Notre Dame can attack

The Miami Hurricanes (8-0) opened at No. 1 in the College Football Playoff selection committee’s first rankings Tuesday night with one win over a team in its Top 25, a 33-20 result at the No. 16 Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Sept. 18.

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek, the Arkansas athletic director, described that choice as “really unanimous,” on a board that drew complaints almost everywhere else.

“Not that Miami was an easy definitive choice, but that may have been the easiest decision that the committee had to make,” Yurachek said.

Miami’s strength of schedule sat 49th nationally going into the reveal, so the zero in the loss column did most of the separating. The No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs own the better win, at the No. 5 Alabama Crimson Tide, and they also own a home loss to the 4-4 Auburn Tigers. The No. 3 Utah Utes are unbeaten too, with a comparable credential in their win over the No. 17 Houston Cougars. Miami’s six wins by 13 points or more, including 41-13 at the Clemson Tigers, look like the likeliest difference between the two.

Why Saturday’s trip to South Bend tests the top spot

Miami ranks 122nd in FBS in pass defense, giving up 252 yards per game. The Florida State Seminoles and North Carolina Tar Heels combined for 850 yards against the Hurricanes in two of their past three games. Florida State took Miami to a second overtime before losing 43-35. North Carolina had two onside recoveries wiped out by penalties and still forced the Hurricanes to secure a third attempt in the final two minutes of a 38-35 finish.

Those two opponents are a combined 7-9. The No. 11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish host Miami on Saturday after averaging 40.4 points through eight games and reaching 35 points in six of them. The Irish built much of that total against soft opposition, which makes Saturday an open test for both sides.

Notre Dame is also the last ranked opponent on Miami’s regular-season schedule. The Duke Blue Devils, Virginia Tech Hokies and Boston College Eagles all travel to Miami to close the year, and none of them appears in the Top 25.

A win in South Bend would be the Hurricanes’ first over a team ranked higher than 16th, and it would finally put a top-15 result behind a school-record ranking built so far on winning every week against mostly unranked teams.

Tuesday’s order suggests a loss would leave plenty of room to recover. Georgia lost at home to an unranked team and still landed second. The Indiana Hoosiers lost to the No. 12 Ohio State Buckeyes, have no ranked wins and still hold No. 4. The top four spots come with first-round byes with or without a conference title, so a one-loss Miami would keep a clear route to the same bracket position.
It would give up the unanimous standing that made Tuesday so simple, and the pass defense numbers would become the first thing the committee has to explain.

The Hurricanes opened last season’s rankings at No. 18, stayed outside the committee’s top 10 until the final list and finished that season in the national title game, a 27-21 loss to Indiana. Tuesday’s list is the first of six, and the last arrives Dec. 6.

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