A lot of people are on the Miami bandwagon recently, as the Hurricanes have stormed to a 10-0 start to the season and are ranked No. 3 in the College Football Playoff poll.
ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) is not impressed.
Despite Miami's undefeated record, they still don't rank in the Top 10 of ESPN's FPI, as the Hurricanes rank 12th in the updated rankings following Week 12 of action.
While Miami does have impressive looking wins this year of Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, they are held back a bit in computer algorithms like this one for a couple of reasons: 1) Miami hasn't beaten an over-.500 team in a road game and 2) Miami's struggles against teams like Georgia Tech, North Carolina, and Florida State earlier in the season are really holding them back some here, as all of those games were much closer than what you would expect out of a Top 5 team. Even the Virginia game — which Miami wound up winning 44-28 — is reflecting poorly on Miami in FPI due to how well Virginia had played in the first three quarters of the game.
At the end of the day, of course, the ESPN FPI doesn't decide the College Football Playoff; the actual committee rankings do. Miami fans will probably be able to get over being snubbed in the FPI if they are able to finish undefeated and make it into college football's final four.
