After Wake Forest canceled its game with the Miami football team this upcoming Saturday the ACC acted quickly to schedule the Hurricanes at Duke this Saturday.
The schedule for the Miami football team was quickly reshuffled following the cancelation by Wake Forest because of COVID-19 for Saturday. The Hurricanes will now play at Duke. Miami will kickoff at the Blue Devils at 8 PM on the ACC Network. The Miami football team will play at Duke for the second straight season.
Duke has defeated Miami the last two seasons. The Blue Devils won 27-17 in the final regular-season game last year in Durham and 20-12 in 2018 at Hard Rock Stadium. Miami leads the all-time series against Duke 13-4 with a 12-3 lead in the ACC. Prior to 2018, Duke last defeated Miami 48-30 in 2013.
Duke was made available to play Miami after the Blue Devils game against Florida State was canceled. The Seminoles will have a game canceled for the third straight week. Florida State canceled each of its last two games hours before kickoff. Games against Clemson and Virginia were canceled because of contact tracing.
Florida State had only 44 players available this past Saturday against Virginia. Miami defeated the Seminoles 52-10 in September at Hard Rock Stadium. According to ESPN, the ACC mandates all players who test positive must isolate for 10 days while players in contact tracing should be quarantined for 14 days.
With those parameters, there was no way for the Seminoles to field a team against Duke opening the door for the ACC to match the Blue Devils and Miami. Miami benefits from the Florida State not being able to play just two weeks after announcing their own need to cancel their games for November 21 and 28.
The Georgia Tech game scheduled for November 21 has tentatively been reset for December 19 depending on the final outcome of the ACC Standings and the November 28 game against Wake Forest was moved to December 5 as previously stated. Florida State is 2-6 and has no other games scheduled this season.
The ACC could choose to re-schedule one of the Florida State games for later in the year. Miami will now have a chance to earn another ACC win. If Miami defeats Duke and North Carolina a week later, the Hurricanes would still be alive in the ACC race. At the worst, Miami would finish tied for second in the ACC with Clemson.