Miami’s spot in the AP Top 25 looked secure after a 45-6 road win at Stanford, but one ballot turned the update into a small mystery.
The Hurricanes stayed at No. 7 in Tuesday’s poll, one place behind Oregon, and the margin was razor thin. Oregon finished with 1,422 points, while Miami had 1,405 - a 17-point gap that left plenty of room for fans to wonder what might have happened if one ballot had gone differently.
That ballot belonged to Rutgers beat reporter Brian Fonseca, who left Miami completely off his Top 25 list with no explanation. The omission stood out even more because Fonseca had Miami at No. 6 the week before.
Under the AP system, that sixth-place vote would have been worth 20 points. Add those to Miami’s total and the Hurricanes would have moved to 1,425, which would have put them three points ahead of Oregon and into the No. 6 spot. Even an eighth-place vote would have been enough to jump the Ducks, and a ninth-place vote would have tied them.
The issue quickly drew attention on social media, with observers pointing out that Miami’s absence from the ballot may have been an error rather than an intentional decision.
Fonseca has not publicly said he meant to leave Miami out, but the lack of explanation has only fueled the questions. After ranking the Hurricanes No. 6 a week earlier and seeing them win by 39 on the road, the most obvious answer appears to be that he simply forgot to include them.
That kind of mistake has happened before, especially for voters filling out ballots in the early morning after long Saturday workdays. But even when errors happen, they tend to come with an acknowledgment - and they’re not supposed to happen twice.
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