Historically, when the Miami Hurricanes have been in the national spotlight, they had a top-10 ranking and were competing for a national championship.
As UM builds toward restoring that national prominence, there are several other factors contributing to why No. 17 Miami has the prime-time 7:30 p.m. slot on ABC against No. 18 Louisville on Saturday — with ESPN’s College GameDay highlighting the weekend’s only matchup between two ranked teams.
For starters: The COVID-19 pandemic has the SEC still a week away from starting, the Big Ten a month away and the PAC-12 without a start date to its postponed season; the Virginia-Virginia Tech ACC rivalry game was postponed, sliding Miami-Louisville from its original 3:30 time; and the Hurricanes and Cardinals are only in the top 20 because of how many teams are excluded from those rankings.