Records and rankings as of Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026.
Until Saturday night, Miami looked like the best team in the country. Then Notre Dame beat the Hurricanes 31-24 in South Bend. That was the first blemish of the year, and it showed up in the polls right away. The Associated Press moved them to No. 5. On Tuesday the College Football Playoff committee went further, from No. 1 all the way to No. 7.
That's a real punch. It is not a team in free fall. Miami is still 8-1, still 6-0 in the ACC, and still alone in first place. The last three games are all at Hard Rock Stadium. If you're searching for a program that just lost its grip, this isn't the one.
How They Got Here
The start was loud. Miami opened with a 45-6 win at Stanford, then dropped 77-7 on Florida A&M and 52-3 on Central Michigan at home. The road wins at Wake Forest (33-20) and at Clemson (41-13) were the ones that made people sit up. Florida State took them to double overtime before the Hurricanes got out with a 43-35 win, Pitt was a 52-23 roll, and North Carolina almost stole Halloween in a 38-35 finish.
Eight wins, a few of them comfortable, a couple of them sweaty, and then the one that got away. Through it all, the ACC says Miami leads the country in scoring at 45 points a game and in rushing defense at 64.3 yards a game. That's the profile of a team that spent three weeks at No. 1 in the AP poll. One tough night in Indiana doesn't erase it.
The Staff
Mario Cristobal is in his fifth season as head coach, back at the school where he won two national titles as a player. Last year he got Miami to its first College Football Playoff and all the way to the national championship game. This year the standard was clear in September. They weren't building toward something. They were supposed to be something.
Shannon Dawson is in his fourth season as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Corey Hetherman is in year two as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, a year after he was a Broyles Award finalist and helped turn that defense into a problem. I don't need a whiteboard to tell you it's working. The points are up, the run defense is first in the country, and both coordinators have the tape to match.
The Playmakers
Start with Darian Mensah, in his first season at Miami. Through nine games the junior has completed 212 of 276 passes, 76.8 percent, for 2,694 yards, 28 touchdowns and two interceptions, according to the school. The ACC has him first in the country in completion percentage, passing efficiency (190.8) and Total QBR (89.1). You can hunt for a flaw in those numbers. I haven't found one yet.
Malachi Toney made the whole thing go faster. In eight games the sophomore has 73 catches, 1,027 yards and 13 touchdowns, with five 100-yard games and a 234-yard, three-score night against Stanford. He and Mensah were both named Walter Camp Player of the Year semifinalists on Wednesday. Then came a high ankle sprain at practice on Nov. 4 and surgery the next day. Toney missed the Notre Dame game, and he's expected to miss the rest of the regular season. The hope is he can be back in December if Miami is still playing, which is the whole point of the next month.
The offense has other people. Mark Fletcher Jr. has 514 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in eight games. Freshman Javian Mallory has 509 yards and seven scores in nine games, at 6.9 yards a carry. Tight end Elija Lofton has 27 catches for 349 yards and three touchdowns. On defense, linebacker Mohamed Toure leads the team with 56 tackles, and defensive lineman Marquise Lightfoot has 7 sacks.
That's still a lot of football even with Toney watching from the sideline.
Three Games at Home
Duke is first, Saturday at noon on ABC, a Homecoming game at Hard Rock Stadium. The Blue Devils are 7-2 and 4-2 in the ACC. We'll have a full preview of that matchup Saturday morning, so I'm not going to recap their roster here. After that it's Virginia Tech on Nov. 21 and Boston College on Nov. 28, kickoff times still to be announced. All three in Miami Gardens. Win those, and last Saturday gets a lot quieter.
The Playoff Picture
The playoff is a 12-team field. The ACC champion gets an automatic bid, and the top four seeds get a first-round bye. That comes straight from the committee, not from a bracket account on social media.
Miami is No. 7 in the second CFP rankings, released Nov. 10. Georgia took over at No. 1, followed by Utah, Alabama, UCLA, Notre Dame and Texas. Wake Forest is the only other ACC team in the committee's top 25, at No. 13, sitting 8-1 and 5-1 in the league. If this ranking held, the Hurricanes would already be in the field as a first-round team. Rankings do not hold in November.
The cleanest way in is still the obvious one. Win the ACC. The championship game is Dec. 5 at noon on ABC at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. The conference says Miami can clinch a spot in that game this weekend with a win over Duke, a Louisville loss at North Carolina, and either a Clemson loss to Georgia Tech or an SMU loss to Wake Forest.
Win the home games, get to Charlotte, and this team is right back in the middle of the thing it spent all fall building. The 8-0 start was a lot of fun. The next month is the part that decides whether it lasts.
