Kirk Herbstreit claims Miami fans should be concerned about College Football Playoff chances

Kirk Herbstreit believes Miami might’ve dug itself into a hole too big to climb out of. At the moment, it seems like the Hurricanes will end up on the outside looking in of the College Football Playoff.

Whether it’s fair or not, the two losses Mario Cristobal’s team has suffered have them running on fumes, despite their head-to-head win over Notre Dame. On the latest episode of Nonstop, the ESPN analyst sent his condolences to Miami regarding its situation.

“If I were a Miami fan, I’d be concerned,” Herbstreit stated. “Notre Dame is sitting there at No. 9. They’ve got Syracuse and Stanford. Assuming they win both of those games convincingly — we’re still going to be saying they’re not playing anybody, but they’re going to win 49-10. What could you do if you’re on that committee to say, ‘We got to move Notre Dame back?’ Or what can Miami do to say, ‘We got to get Miami up?’

“If they won the ACC — they get into the ACC championship, that might be another (way). But right now, they’re on the outside looking in there. It’s frustrating, I know. I get it. This is where you wish there was 14 teams or 14 teams. I’ve done about two or three Miami games. I like Miami.”

Herbstreit is a believer, but it’s going to take the CFP Selection Committee changing its tune over the next couple of weeks to get Miami to the 12-team dance. Whether they get the help they need or not remains to be seen, but the Hurricanes are certainly in an undesirable situation at the moment.

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Moreover, the fallout from the College Football Playoff rankings being released Tuesday has provided plenty of discussion about Notre Dame and Miami. Both teams made the playoff, with the Fighting Irish coming in at No. 9 and the Hurricanes at No. 13, but receiving an auto bid as the highest-ranked ACC school.

That led to ESPN analyst Rece Davis pressing CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek for answers on how those teams landed where they did. Even though Miami defeated Notre Dame earlier this season and both have two losses, Yurachek pointed to the quality of those losses as being the main difference. 

“When you look at Notre Dame and Miami, we really compare the losses of those two teams,” he said. “Miami has lost to two unranked teams and Notre Dame has lost to two teams that are ranked in our top 13. So we really haven’t compared those two teams. They haven’t been in similarly comparative pools to date. But Miami is creeping up into that range where they will be compared to Notre Dame if something happens above them.”

Alas, based on their current ranking, we can’t count the Hurricanes out yet. Yurachek went on to say that while the committee hasn’t compared Miami and Notre Dame yet, the Hurricanes could eventually put themselves into that conversation. In that case, the head-to-head victory would hold a lot of weight. 

— On3’s Chandler Vessels contributed to this article.