Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame sits at 7-2 with a respectable No. 9 ranking in the latest College Football Playoff rankings. But as the Irish are firmly in the playoff conversations, one team lurks in the shadows with the potential to derail their postseason hopes entirely. It’s not the ranked opponent they’ll face this week. It’s a team they already lost to back in August.

Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst, Joel Klatt, set the record straight when discussing the potential Miami-Notre Dame dilemma during a recent episode of his podcast. “So then Miami. Let’s see what if Miami wins out. Everybody then would just be sitting there thinking to themselves, who’s the argument with? Is the argument with Notre Dame? And in that scenario, it gets interesting. And I vow to you, our listeners, that I will do this if this is the case. If it comes down to a discussion and a debate between Miami and Notre Dame, Miami should go to the playoff.” 

Joel Klatt’s reasoning was straightforward and emphatic. “I do not care what they have looked like. You have to honor a direct head-to-head matchup or else what are we doing? What are we doing?”​

The head-to-head matchup in question happened on August 31 at Hard Rock Stadium. The No. 10 Hurricanes edged the No. 6 Fighting Irish 27-24 in a thriller that came down to the final two minutes. Miami jumped out to a 21-3 lead in the third quarter behind quarterback Carson Beck. Notre Dame mounted a furious fourth-quarter comeback, with quarterback CJ Carr scoring on a 7-yard run to tie the game with under two minutes remaining. But the Hurricanes ended up as the victors with a game winning field goal.

That head-to-head result is now the centerpiece of Joel Klatt’s argument. If both teams end up with similar resumes and are competing for the same playoff spot, the direct matchup should be the tiebreaker, regardless of how inconsistent Miami has looked at times this season.​

Joel Klatt laid out the remaining obstacles for Miami to even get into that position. He acknowledged that nothing is guaranteed for a Hurricanes team sitting at 7-2 overall and 3-2 in ACC play. “Miami’s got to hope that Texas falls off. They’ve got to hope that Vandy gets beaten by Tennessee. They’ve got to hope that they don’t stumble because they’ve got to go to Pitt and play a cold-weather road game in November. So, there’s no guarantee that they’re even going to be in that position. But if they can get to a position where they’re in direct comparison with Notre Dame, even I will pound the table for Miami,” Joel Klatt said. 

The analyst’s mention of specific scenarios reveals just how precarious Miami’s path remains. Texas currently sits at 7-2 and plays at No. 5 Georgia on November 15. They close with Arkansas and rival Texas A&M. This brutal finish could absolutely knock the Longhorns out of contention. Vanderbilt is 8-2 and plays at Tennessee on November 29, a game the Vols are heavily favored to win. If those dominoes fall and Miami can navigate its remaining schedule, the Hurricanes would suddenly be in a prime position to jump Notre Dame in the pecking order.​

Miami’s narrow path to the playoffs

Miami’s playoff hopes are hanging by a thread. The Hurricanes sit at 7-2 overall but are stuck in seventh place in the ACC at 3-2 in conference play. They trail behind five teams with just one conference loss each. Analyst Joe DeLeone laid out the grim reality, noting that “Miami still has a shot” but emphasizing that the path is incredibly narrow.

The Hurricanes need to win out while simultaneously hoping for chaos among the teams ahead of them. DeLeone’s prescription for Miami’s survival involves praying that “SMU does the same” by winning out, that “Pitt beats Georgia Tech,” that “Duke beats Virginia, and then loses to Wake Forest.” 

If all those dominoes fall, Miami would enter a five-way tie that could theoretically give them a shot at the ACC Championship Game. But as DeLeone bluntly put it, “They have serious issues, and they can’t finish when it matters most.”​

DeLeone wasn’t optimistic about the conference’s overall strength either. He declared that “none of these teams are good, none of these teams are legitimate Top 12 teams. None of them should be ranked higher than 15 after this week’s rankings.” The irony is that Miami is currently the highest-ranked ACC team at No. 15 in the CFP rankings despite being seventh in the conference standings. But talent alone won’t get them into the playoffs. They need to win their remaining games and hope that their ACC counterparts crash and burn in the games ahead.