One of college football's great rivalries takes center stage on Saturday night when No. 3 Miami welcomes Florida State for their traditional October clash. As usual, the game has ACC and national title race implications, though this season those conversations are focused far more on Miami, which finished last season as the national runner-up and is currently the heavy favorite to win the ACC in 2026. Things are far different for Florida State and embattled coach Mike Norvell, who entered the year facing serious job pressure and now risks falling to 3-4 on the season and 1-3 in ACC play if the Seminoles cannot pull a stunning upset.
Wins against Miami in 2021, 2022 and 2023 were crucial building blocks of Norvell's eventual ACC Championship run, but now it's Mario Cristobal who has the chance to string together three straight wins in the series after the Hurricanes got the better of Florida State in 2024 and 2025. The return to Miami Gardens also spotlights what has become a notable home-field advantage for Miami in this recent run, as the Hurricanes are 15-1 at home since the start of the 2024 season, including that 36-14 win against the Seminoles in Hard Rock Stadium two years ago. Miami has been absolute rock stars in the ACC and the sport as a whole, continuing the momentum from the team's College Football Playoff run with eye-popping scores and stat-stuffing performances to start the 2026 season.
Florida State hopes to provide more resistance than the average Miami opponent, but even that might not be enough to stop the ACC's most potent national title contender. A big stage for Darian Mensah's Heisman Trophy case: Miami quarterback Darian Mensah has been playing at an elite level all season, but the lopsided wins and predicted blowouts haven't given him the stage and audience that Saturday night's rivalry game will command. Miami may be in a far better place than Florida State this season, but this iconic rivalry will still bring the attention of Heisman Trophy voters to Hard Rock Stadium to see how Mensah performs under the pressure.
Currently, he's one of just two FBS quarterbacks with 15-plus passing touchdowns and zero interceptions and boasts the best completion percentage (84.2%) and passer rating (212.2) in all of FBS. Mensah will still have a road trip to Notre Dame and a few other opportunities to shine in the spotlight, but Saturday night could prove to be the launching point for Mensah to push Jeremiah Smith in the Heisman conversation. Florida State struggling against top teams: While Florida State has won three national championships and spent 72 weeks ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll throughout its history, the Seminoles have struggled against the best teams in recent years.
As the Seminoles take aim at their rival from the South, they do so staring down a brutal losing streak against top-3 teams from the AP poll. Florida State has lost its last eight games against AP top-three teams, last winning in the BCS National Championship Game against Auburn at the end of the 2013 season. Another losing streak that Florida State can put to bed on Saturday night is a 12-game road losing streak against teams with any AP ranking, which stretches back to a 2016 win at Miami.
No one is beating teams like Miami is in 2026: The Hurricanes enter this annual rivalry checkpoint with one of the most dominant teams in the country, beating opponents by an average of 39.8 points per game. That's the largest points-per-game differential through five games in school history and is currently the largest among all FBS teams. Now, a skeptic would be quick to point out that a 70-point win against Florida A&M will do a lot to juice those averages, but it's the consistency with which Miami has been blitzing its opponents that stands out.
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