The 2025 college football season began with a fascinating matchup between Notre Dame and Miami, one that the Hurricanes won by a final score of 27-24.
As the regular season winds down, those two programs seem on a collision course, only this time the potential winner will be decided not on the field, but rather by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee.
And how the Committee handles that potential matchup will be fascinating to watch.
In the latest set of rankings from the Selection Committee released last night, the third such installment this season, Notre Dame (8-2) was ranked at No. 9, four spots ahead of the 8-2 Hurricanes.
It was easy to hear the uproar coming from South Beach.
Speaking with ESPN moments after the rankings were released Hunter Yurachek — who recently took over the lead role on the Committee following the departure of Baylor Athletic Director Mack Rhoades — pointed not to the wins, but the losses.
“I think when you look at Notre Dame and Miami, we really compare the losses of those two teams,” began Yurachek. “Miami has lost to two unranked teams, Notre Dame has lost to two teams we have ranked in our Top 13.”
Yes, Miami has a pair of losses to unranked teams, first to Louisville and later to SMU. Notre Dame, as Yurachek pointed out Tuesday night, has losses to ranked teams: A one-point loss to No. 3 Texas A&M at home in the second week of the season.
And their opening-week loss to the Hurricanes.
Yurachek went on to argue that the Committee had yet to truly compare Miami and Notre Dame, given where each team stood in the previous versions of their rankings. When the Committee released its first Top 25 at the start of the month Notre Dame clocked in at No. 10 while Miami was down at No. 18, behind both Virginia and Louisville out of the ACC.
One might feel that the Committee felt a feeling of relief with those first rankings, as Virginia and Louisville gave the Committee some breathing space between Notre Dame and Miami. But then came Week 11. Louisville lost to California while Virginia fell to Wake Forest, dropping both of those teams to two losses on the season.
In the second set of rankings from the Committee, Miami was up to No. 15 (and the top team out of the ACC) while Notre Dame clicked up a spot to No. 19.
Meeting with reporters after the release, Yurachek pointed to the process of ranking the teams, outlining that the Committee has not truly been in a position to directly compare Miami and Notre Dame yet.
“I think there’s some other factors where you have Utah, BYU, and Alabama in between Notre Dame and Miami. As we set up the pools to do our selection process, Miami and Notre Dame have not been grouped in the same pools to have that direct head-to-head comparison, where you would really use that metric to separate one team from the next,“ said Yurachek.
“So I think it’s the separation that you have between those teams, similar to a separation you have right now between a Vanderbilt and Texas, where you have a head-to-head metric as well.“
Under that process, the Committee focuses on the top four teams in the first round, teams five through eight in the second, and then the rest of the Top 12 in the third round.
Miami, as they did last week, fell into the next pool, the group of teams under consideration for No. 13 through No. 16.
How can Miami get into that pool with Notre Dame, the pool they have been inching towards these past few weeks?
Keep winning, and get a little help, according to the Commitee.
“First and foremost, Miami needs to continue to win the football games they have in front of them, and then things will happen. There’s still a lot of football to be played with two more weeks in the regular season and then the championship week,” began Yurachek.
“You look at the teams that are between Notre Dame and Miami right now, you’ve got Alabama that’s got a game against Auburn coming up and then potentially an SEC Championship game. BYU has a couple of games remaining and then potentially a Big 12 Championship game. Then you’ve got Utah with a couple games,” continued the head of the Committee.
“So I would say Miami needs to continue to win, and then hope for some things ahead of them fall their way.”
Notre Dame closes out their season with games against unranked opponents Syracuse and Stanford. As for the Hurricanes, they travel to Virginia Tech this weekend before closing out the season against Pittsburgh, a team that just fell out of these rankings after losing to Notre Dame.
And while Notre Dame will be watching the games along with the rest of us during Conference Championship weekend, the Hurricanes face a difficult path to the ACC Championship Game. Right now Miami sits fifth in the ACC standings with a 4-2 conference record, behind a pair of teams (Georgia Tech and Virginia) with 6-1 conference records and two teams with 5-1 conference records (Pittsburgh and SMU).
The full list of scenarios can be seen here, but to put it simply, just winning out will not be enough for Miami to reach the ACC title game.
That would mean both Miami and Notre Dame would be judged on what they did in the regular season alone, and lock the Hurricanes into a world where they can only secure a spot in the bracket as an at-large team.
And they could be battling with the Fighting Irish for that final spot.
If these two teams eventually end up in the same pool, the Committee will face a decision regarding what matters more: Quality losses or head-to-head wins.
According to their voting principles, these are the four major factors:
- Strength of schedule,
- Head-to-head competition,
- Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory), and,
- Other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.
Notre Dame’s Strength of Schedule? That ranks 29th in the nation.
Miami checks in at 43.
But with a win over Notre Dame.
Still, Yurachek indicated Tuesday night that losses might be the determinative factor. Asked to compare Utah and Miami, a pair of 8-2 teams, and elaborate on why the Utes were ahead of the Hurricanes, Yurachek again pointed to the losses rather than the wins.
In regards to Utah being ahead of Miami, I mean, Utah, they’ve lost two games this season, one to No. 5 Texas Tech, the other to No. 11 BYU. Comparatively, Miami’s lost two games, one at home to an unranked Louisville and one on the road against an unranked SMU. So when you talk about two teams that are 8-2 and you don’t really have a common opponent or a head-to-head matchup, you really look at the losses Utah has versus the losses that Miami has,“ said Yurachek.
“Utah right now, they are second in the country in their margin of victory in each of their games. They have played really good football moving forward. Obviously there’s a 12 versus 13, that one spot apart, but I think the differentiator is the losses that Utah has versus the losses that Miami has.“
The lesson from the Committee on Tuesday?
It might not be who you beat, but rather who beats you.
