Miami's CFB Playoff Bracket Scenarios, Landing Spot Prediction After Win vs. Pitt

Miami ended its regular season with an emphatic 38-7 road win over No. 22 Pitt on Saturday.

After that result, No. 12 Miami had two possible routes to the College Football Playoff.

The first was the ACC Championship Game. Miami needed three things to happen to qualify. The first was a win over Pitt—mission accomplished.

Miami also needed two of three things to happen: A Duke loss to Wake Forest, an SMU loss to Cal and/or Virginia loses to Virginia Tech, per David Lake of Inside the U.

However, Duke beat Wake Forest 49-32, meaning Miami needed SMU and UVA defeats.

If Miami gets to the ACC title game, then a win there automatically qualifies the Hurricanes for the College Football Playoff.

With so much in flux, the best guess on a potential landing spot is No. 11. Currently, Miami is No. 12. The highest-ranked conference winners all move onto the CFP, plus the next seven best at-large teams.

This year, the teams are solely seeded based on their rankings. The projected winners of the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 are all ranked ahead of Miami, so the Hurricanes will slot behind them.

However, no other projected league winner was in the latest top 25, so Miami won't be landing 12th. One spot up puts Miami at 11th, where the Hurricanes were after the latest bracket reveal.

On the flip side, if Miami doesn't qualify for the ACC Championship Game, then its best hope is an unlikely at-large bid.

Brad Crawford of CBS Sports noted Friday that Miami likely needed losses from three of Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama, BYU and Utah to sneak into the field.

However, BYU, Oklahoma and Utah won before Notre Dame (at Stanford) and Alabama (at Auburn) even played, leaving Miami's chances in trouble.

It's possible that the committee could re-think matters and place Miami over Notre Dame considering the Hurricanes' win over the Fighting Irish earlier this year. However, Notre Dame has consistently been ahead of Miami in the rankings, and that tells how the committee feels about the two teams' resumes side-to-side.

Ultimately, if Miami gets in as an at-large team, the Hurricanes should be 10th at worst. As noted by Crawford, Miami would have to be 10th at worst in the final rankings to be the last squad in. The issue is that BYU and Alabama were ahead of Miami in the last ranking.

There's a lot at play here, but the Hurricanes' fate is ultimately in the hands of other teams now.