Miami Hurricanes Thanksgiving Viewing Guide

The Canes are going to need help to get into the College Football Playoffs. While that is a load of crap, it is the reality of the situation. So, over this holiday weekend, sit back, relax, and know who to cheer for (or against).

The At-Large Route

In order for Miami to make it as an at-large, they need to get up to 9th to be totally safe, and at least 10th.

If Texas Tech is upset in the Big 12 championship game by a BYU team that is behind Miami, both teams would likely go and the Big 12 would be a 2-bid league. That’s the only scenario where Miami needs to be 9th.

If Miami gets to 10th without getting in front of BYU, they should be okay. The 11th and 12th seeds with be the ACC Champion (provided it is not Miami) and a G5 team.

So the Canes need 2 things:

1. 2 or 3 teams in front of them to lose AND drop behind Miami
2. No one behind Miami to jump them

All of this assumes that the Canes beat Pitt on Saturday. Without that, none of this matters and I’ll see y’all in Orlando for the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Since this is a viewing guide, I will organize this chronologically.

Friday, November 28

The Canes definitely want Mississippi State to win this game. A 2-loss Ole Miss team would theoretically have a worse resume than Miami. However, there is a complication here. Ole Miss’s singular quality win was over Oklahoma. These teams are currently back-to-back in the standings. Will they really leave Ole Miss out of the playoffs in favor of a team they beat by 8 on the road? I’m skeptical (and I also understand the irony, but so far, the only place they’ve been willing to ignore head-to-head is with Miami and Notre Dame).

No brainer, Canes want Kansas to win. Utah is one spot behind the Canes and Miami only moved in front of them this week.

I’m not even going to pretend that Georgia would drop below Miami even with a loss. They’re basically a lock. With that said, Georgia Tech snatching a high profile SEC win can’t hurt the conference’s reputation. This is in this section versus the ACC section because it has no bearing on the ACC standings.

The Canes want Texas A&M to win this. They’re a lock regardless, and while Texas looks to be a bit too far back, the Canes would prefer not to look over their shoulder at the Longhorns coming off a quality win.

Saturday, November 29

This is similar to the discussion with A&M and UT. Ohio State is a lock and Michigan is a few spots behind the Canes (with losses to USC and OU), but leave nothing to chance. Hopefully OSU handles them to remove a potential landmine.

If West Virginia can somehow pull off this upset, it would all but guarantee that the Big 12 is a one bid league. That means that the Canes are likely only needing to move up 2 spots since the winner of Texas Tech and BYU would be the automatic bid (both are currently in front of the Canes) and the loser would be behind the Canes.

It’s a long shot, but a Central Florida win would eliminate BYU from at-large consideration. They would still be in play for an automatic bid, however, and if the Big 12 ends up a 2-bid league, a loss here won’t help that much.

Oregon’s resume is not very strong, and a loss to Washington would make things interesting. Would they fall all the way out of the playoffs? Probably not, but one can hope.

This would be one of the few, guaranteed to help, somewhat plausible results. If LSU beats Oklahoma, Oklahoma will surely fall out of the playoffs with a 3rd loss and open a spot up for the Canes.

This is a “don’t trust the committee” game, but a Tennessee win over Vanderbilt will prevent the Commodores from jumping the Canes.

This is the less plausible version of LSU-Oklahoma. If Auburn beats Alabama, Alabama will be eliminated with a 3rd loss.

We all know what Stanford is having seen them play. This isn’t happening. Ironically, ND winning would help the Canes’ resume, but for some reason Notre Dame to has a worse record than them despite Miami winning when they played, so Miami is hoping for a Stanford miracle.

The ACC Route

Outside of the moving up 2-3 spots and claiming an at-large spot, Miami can still win a convoluted tiebreaker and go to the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte. This is how Miami makes the ACC Championship Game:

Note: The SportSource Analytics Rankings are not public, however the Canes would in theory rate out well against SMU and Duke since I believe this doesn’t just account for conference games. Georgia Tech would be muddier, but the Canes’ metrics are generally good, so one would hope they would win those tiebreakers. 

This table shows the games and results that get the Canes to Charlotte. The ones in yellow will fall back on the SportSource Analytics Rankings.

Saturday, November 29th

Obviously, Miami needs to win this game or the rest of the day will be spent drowning sorrows in copious amounts of alcohol.

This could play a role in some of the multi-team tiebreakers to keep the Canes out of a situation where the SportsSource Analytics Rankings are used. This is by far the least impactful of the ACC games, but Syracuse winning would remove all but one of the Analytics Rankings tiebreakers.

This is the first major competitor for the Canes. If Wake Forest beats Duke, that will put 6 permutations into play for the night session of games. If Duke wins, the Canes aren’t out, but that means they are down to 2 scenarios.

This is another big one. If Duke won earlier, then Virginia Tech must beat Virginia to keep the Canes’ chances alive. If Syracuse and Wake Forest have already won (along with the Canes), then the Canes would clinch with a VT win.

This one is big for tiebreakers. NC State beating UNC is actually present in 5 of the 8 scenarios that put the Canes into Charlotte, and irrelevant in 2 others. This will be running concurrent to the UVA game, but if Duke won earlier, this becomes a must win for NC State.

And the nightcap…on net, Cal beating SMU is what the Canes want, but there is an oddball scenario where Duke, UVA, NC State, and Syracuse have all lost and SMU winning is actually better because it puts the Canes in Charlotte whereas an SMU loss would mean it goes to the Analytics Rankings.

Vishnu Parasuraman is a show host and writer for @FiveReasonsSports. He covers the Miami Hurricanes Football for @SixthRingCanes Miami Hurricanes Basketball for @buckets_canes , and Miami Hurricanes Baseball for @CanesOnDeck as part of the @5ReasonsCanes Network. You can follow him on twitter @vrp2003