![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2257134490.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal looks on. (Photo by Megan Briggs\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Over the final month of the college football<\/a> regular season last fall, the big topic up for discussion was whether or not the University of Miami<\/a> was going to get an at-large bid to the 12-team College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n The Hurricanes ended up being the last team in the field. They took full advantage of the opportunity they were given. They made a run from opening weekend to the National Championship Game. It was a run not many, if anyone, outside of South Florida, saw coming.<\/p>\n Miami beat Texas A&M<\/a> on the road in the first round, then took down the defending National Champs in Ohio State<\/a> in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, they survived Ole Miss without Lane Kiffin to advance to play Indiana. The Hoosiers held off Miami<\/a> in the title game, played in the Hurricanes\u2019 home stadium.<\/p>\n Going into the 2026 season that begins in September, Miami is seen as the favorite in the ACC. Why not? However, one college football writer had a shocking, bold prediction for the Hurricanes in 2026.<\/p>\n Miami Hurricanes Get Stunning Bold Prediction for 2026 Season<\/p>\n Cody Nagel of CBS Sports<\/a> listed one bold prediction for every ACC team for the 2026 season. When it comes to the Hurricanes, well, Nagel certainly had a bold prediction. He predicted that Miami would miss the ACC Championship Game again.<\/p>\n \u201cMiami enters the 2026 season as the runaway favorite to win the ACC \u2014 a familiar position for a program that\u2019s consistently been projected among the league\u2019s top contenders in recent years. And yet, the breakthrough still hasn\u2019t come,\u201d wrote Nagel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue hasn\u2019t always been the spotlight moments. Credit to Mario Cristobal, as his in-game management showed real improvement during the College Football Playoff. The problem has been everything else. Miami has developed a habit of dropping one or two games it simply shouldn\u2019t, and those slip-ups have kept it out of Charlotte. The numbers back it up: the Hurricanes are just 1-4 in their last five ACC games decided by eight points or fewer, after going 5-3 in those situations earlier in Cristobal\u2019s tenure,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Nagel is right about Miami being the runaway favorite, but he is also right when it comes to Cristobal and winning the big regular-season games in South Florida. The numbers don\u2019t lie. Losses at home to Louisville<\/a> and on the\u00a0road at SMU<\/a> last year were self-inflicted and are ones\u00a0good teams avoid. The Hurricanes can\u2019t seem to avoid them under Cristobal.<\/p>\n Miami Needs To Change the Narrative in 2026<\/p>\n How bad was the ACC last year? Duke won the ACC Championship Game<\/a> over Virginia. The Blue Devils didn\u2019t even get to the CFP because of their record. If the Cavaliers<\/a> had won, then they would have gotten in, and Miami would have been left out.<\/p>\n Cristobal and his team have eight ACC games this season. Road games at Stanford, Wake Forest, Clemson, and North Carolina<\/a>. Their conference home games are Florida State<\/a>, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. Sure, road games at Clemson and UNC might be tough, but for a team with high expectations like Miami, those games need to be won.<\/p>\n If they don\u2019t reach the ACC Championship Game and with a road game at Notre Dame, things could get dicey this season for Miami. It\u2019s safe to say that it\u2019s ACC Championship Game or bust this upcoming season.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tScott Roche<\/a> Scott Roche covers college football, NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com and has three decades of sports writing, covering everything from college to professional sports. More about Scott Roche<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Miami\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal looks on. (Photo by Megan Briggs\/Getty Images) Over the final month of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-235701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}