Miami Hurricanes football (two weeks off) rises again in AP poll without playing

Susan Miller Degnan
·2 min read

Another week in college football, another adventure for the Miami Hurricanes in the traditional rankings.

The University of Miami (7-1, 6-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) rose one spot to No. 9 in the AP Top 25 Poll on Sunday after being idle the past two weekends, learning Saturday night that their next scheduled game at Wake Forest was off because of the COVID-19 pandemic — and then Sunday night learning that Wake will be replaced by a Duke road game.

Miami, which was previously at No. 9 in the Amway Coaches Poll, stayed the same for the second consecutive week.

The traditional AP and Coaches polls are not the same as the College Football Playoff rankings, which have Miami at No. 10 after the initial rankings were released Tuesday. The CFP top-25 rankings, which will be released weekly through Dec. 20, are the ones ultimately used to determine the four teams in this season’s semifinal playoffs. The CFP rankings also are used to determine the teams that will fill out the New Year’s Six bowl games.

Last week, the AP poll had Oregon (now 3-1) one spot ahead of Miami at No. 9, but dropped the Ducks to No. 21 Sunday after losing to Oregon State on Friday. The CFP rankings had Oregon at No. 15. Now, the Canes are one spot ahead of AP-No. 10 Indiana (5-1), but by a negligible 7-point margin. Indiana is No. 12 in the CFP rankings.

The CFP selection committee is not supposed to take into account any poll that puts out rankings before the season begins, such as the AP’s, but it should be noted that both the AP and CFP selection committee had the Hurricanes ranked the same last week.

The Canes have either risen or fallen in the AP poll every week since they initially got ranked at No. 17 after winning their opener against Alabama-Birmingham.

The past two Miami weekends were rescheduled because of a coronavirus outbreak in the UM program, which included head coach Manny Diaz. Next Saturday’s Dec. 5 game against the Demon Deacons (4-3, 3-3) in Winston-Salem was scratched by the ACC because of a COVID-19 outbreak in the Wake program.

After next weekend, Miami will face North Carolina on Dec. 12 at Hard Rock Stadium and will meet Georgia Tech in the regular-season finale Dec. 19 at Hard Rock (but only if UM is not in the ACC title game).