Hurricanes move up in College Football Playoff rankings

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The Miami Hurricanes had one of their best performances of the season in their win over N.C. State on Saturday, and it helped them further inch up the College Football Playoff rankings.

Miami moved up from No. 15 last week to No. 13 on Tuesday, moving UM closer to its first-ever berth in the College Football Playoff after a week of lobbying from the ACC.

Similar to the previous rankings, the Hurricanes are the top-ranked ACC team, which means the projected bracket puts Miami in the playoff. But that projection assumes the Hurricanes will be the ACC champion, and Miami is unlikely to reach the conference championship due to its ACC record.

In the current projected bracket, Miami would be the No. 11 seed and travel to play No. 6 Ole Miss in the first round.

The Hurricanes’ most likely path to the playoffs is as an at-large bid, which could put Miami’s resume against fellow likely non-conference champions. That group could include No. 9 Notre Dame, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 14 Vanderbilt, No. 12 Utah and others.

“I think when you look, Rece (Davis), at Notre Dame and Miami, we really compare the losses of those two teams,” new selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said on the ESPN broadcast. “Miami has lost to two unranked teams. Notre Dame has lost to two teams that are ranked in our top 13. So we really haven’t compared those two teams. They haven’t been in similar comparative pools, to date, but Miami is creeping up into that range where they will be compared to Notre Dame if something happens above them.”

Of course, to even be in consideration, Miami will have to win its road game against Virginia Tech this Saturday and a road game against Pittsburgh to close out the regular season. If they win those games and other teams ahead of them lose, UM and Notre Dame — who played in Week 1 — could be competing for one of the last spots in the bracket.

“I think you look at what happened this week when we compared Alabama and Oklahoma in a similar spot where 8, 9, and 10, we were comparing those teams,” Yurachek said on the broadcast. “Oklahoma obviously got the nod with their two-point win at (Alabama). So if Miami and Notre Dame are in a comparable tier, a comparable range, the head-to-head will be a significant data point that we will use.”

Here is this week’s College Football Playoff ranking:

1. Ohio State

2. Indiana

3. Texas A&M

4. Georgia

5. Texas Tech

6. Ole Miss

7. Oregon

8. Oklahoma

9. Notre Dame

10. Alabama

11. BYU

12. Utah

13. Miami

14. Vanderbilt

15. USC

16. Georgia Tech

17. Texas

18. Michigan

19. Virginia

20. Tennessee

21. Illinois

22. Missouri

23. Houston

24. Tulane

25. Arizona State

This story will be updated.

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