CFP committee once again burns Miami football in rankings for no good reason

Miami finished its regular season by smashing Pitt and now, the Hurricanes are sitting squarely on the bubble: close enough to dream, but not safely inside the projected 12-team bracket.

Where Miami sits in the new rankings

The fifth and penultimate CFP rankings released Tuesday kept the top of the board mostly intact. Ohio State stayed at No. 1, unbeaten Indiana held at No. 2, with Georgia and Texas Tech rounding out the top four, all in play for first-round byes.

Behind them, Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M (down from No. 3), Oklahoma, Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU and Miami make up the rest of the top 12. Notre Dame dropped to No. 10 after its win over Stanford, while BYU is No. 11 and Miami checks in at No. 12 as the highest-ranked ACC team.

Same decision, new rhetoric

Once again, the committee did not honor Miami's head-to-head win over Notre Dame, despite both teams sitting at 10-2 with comparable resumes. This has been the case for the last five weeks and questionable reasoning has been given each time. But, this time around, CFP Chair Hunter Yurachek didn't exactly say the decision was permanent.

When talking to Rece Davis after the rankings reveal, Yurachek said, "following the championship games, we will re-rank the top 25 teams, and we'll see where they fall." That was in response to Davis' question asking if the Miami-ND comparison had been put to bed by the committee.

So what does Miami need?

• Stay ahead of Texas and other chasers. Texas is behind Miami and likely can’t jump the Hurricanes without serious chaos because of the common-opponent loss to Florida. But, let's hope that nothing makes the CFP committee think twice.
• Hope at least one of Alabama, Notre Dame or BYU gets nudged down. With Notre Dame currently holding that last at-large spot at No. 10, and Alabama and BYU hovering around them, Miami almost certainly needs one (or two) of those schools to fall in championship weekend — and fall hard enough that the committee drops them behind the Hurricanes.