Notre Dame and Miami have penciled in their game next season for Nov. 7 in South Bend, Indiana — a move that would have the unintended consequence of making the result more difficult to dismiss if both teams are once again competing for a playoff spot.
The Nov. 7 date, confirmed by broadcast industry sources, has not been announced and thus theoretically could be changed if Notre Dame, NBC and UM surprisingly all decided to move the date, which hasn’t been discussed. All parties are operating with the plan of playing the game on Nov. 7, and UM does not intend to back out of the game.
Notre Dame’s first game with an announced date next season is Sunday, Sept. 6 against Wisconsin in Green Bay, per CFPschedules.com. That’s Labor Day weekend next year.
UM’s opener hasn’t been determined; the only announced Canes dates are home games Sept. 12 against Florida A&M and Sept. 26 against Central Michigan. The ACC will move to a nine-game schedule next season, reducing teams’ nonconference games from four to three.
UM beat Notre Dame, 27-24 on Aug. 31, but the College Football Committee has consistently ranked the Fighting Irish ahead of UM when it began its weekly rankings on Nov. 4, justifying the decision by noting that the Fighting Irish has played very well since losing to UM and Texas A&M early in the season and also mentioning that UM lost to two teams (SMU and Louisville) that weren’t highly rated.
The Hurricanes have been lobbying to be moved ahead of Notre Dame in Tuesday night’s penultimate rankings, emphasizing on social media that they not only beat Notre Dame head-to-head but had a larger margin of victory in games against three of their four common opponents.
Would UM give any consideration to canceling next year’s game if the Fighting Irish make the playoffs and the Canes do not?
“No,” UM athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s not a consideration.”
But Radakovich said the Atlantic Coast Conference needs to consider changing the tiebreaker procedures to guarantee that the ACC “puts its best foot forward” in the conference championship game.
The ACC’s tiebreakers have been called into question this week in the wake of unranked Duke landing a spot in Saturday’s ACC Championship Game, against Virginia (8 p.m., ABC).
The Canes (10-2) and Blue Devils (7-5) were among five teams that finished tied for second in the ACC at 6-2 – behind 7-1 Virginia.
But Duke qualified for the conference championship game in Charlotte because of the fifth tiebreaker: conference opponent win percentage. Keep in mind that the ACC approved those tiebreakers before the College Football Playoff field was expanded to four to 12 schools.
What changes would Radakovich make to the tiebreaker?
“I don’t have anything specific in mind,” he said. “I know we will talk about it in February when the [athletic directors] get together. There will be a discussion. A review of the tiebreakers [is warranted].
“Tiebreakers we have now should be more akin to two- or three-team tiebreakers as opposed to three- or four-team tiebreakers. The ones we utilize and the ones a lot of conferences utilize have to be looked at given the unbalanced scheduling and the large number of teams” in conferences.
UM and Duke had only two common opponents (North Carolina State and Syracuse), and the Hurricanes and Blue Devils went 2-0 in those games. Duke lost to Georgia Tech, Virginia, Illinois, Tulane and Connecticut.
If teams don’t play head-to-head, what about the idea of awarding the tiebreaker to the team with the highest CFP ranking, as the American Athletic Conference does?
Radakovich cites one challenging problem with that suggestion: The rankings are released Tuesday night and the ACC Championship is played five days later.
“If we were going with that for the championship game, you wouldn’t know until today and we’re playing the game on Saturday,” Radakovich said Tuesday. “For a preparation perspective for the coaches and the ability to sell tickets and get people to the game, that would be very difficult to do.
“[But] you could use the rankings as a piece of the puzzle, the rankings that would occur the prior Tuesday. I don’t think it would be the lone criteria.”
On the social media platform X, Radakovich has made a compelling case for UM to be included in the playoffs when the field is announced at noon Sunday on ESPN. But he said he’s not lobbying committee directors directly; that’s generally not done.
“When I was on the committee for four years, I rarely answered phone calls going into the deliberation period,” Radakovich said, noting that the ACC and every other conference has someone who presents “material to the committee” that makes a case for member schools.
He said committee members likely would take calls from conference officials, but not necessarily from individual schools.
The ACC also has publicly lobbied the committee to put UM in the playoff.
Here are more notes and thoughts heading into Tuesday’s CFP rankings.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM.
Barry Jackson has written for the Miami Herald since 1986 and has written the Florida Sports Buzz column since 2002.
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