​You knew it was coming eventually, and here it is. Not only the one loss, but by far the most emotionally resonant game we will be discussing in this series – last year’s season-opening defeat at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes. This was a painful enough loss at the time it happened, as a game that felt quite winnable slipped through Notre Dame’s hands. But the now obvious worst part of it was its afterlife, as reminders of it courtesy of the Canes and the ACC dogged the Irish throughout the last few weeks of the year and eventually became the core pretexts for their being bumped from the College Football Playoff.In truth, I don’t have any substantive gripes with Miami per se stemming from this game and the subsequent playoff controversies, or indeed with the Canes generally. I am 32 and thus have no frame of reference for the Catholics vs. Convicts years; anecdotally I’ve heard their fans are terrible but I have genuinely never met one so I can’t confirm that. But as annoying as they were online last year, I think we can all acknowledge we would have been saying exactly the same thing if the scenario were reversed – and indeed have said so about Florida State’s 1993 national championship, which I notice the ACC’s outspoken representatives are not eager to discuss. Moreover, their subsequent playoff run proved Miami were more than worthy of the spot they received. This isn’t the place to relitigate the whole affair but in brief, I believe the real villain here from a rational perspective was not Miami or even the ACC – though the latter does deserve some measure of blame for their Rube Goldberg-esque tiebreaker scheme – but the committee’s increasingly unjustifiable SEC bias, which granted free passes to clearly flagging Oklahoma and Alabama teams and then distracted the nation by pitting the Canes and Irish against each other for the scraps in a cynically contrived reality television storyline.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat’s a rational analysis of the situation. But we are fans, and fandom is not rational. So make no mistake about it: this year’s game is one of the biggest revenge games I can remember Notre Dame having on the schedule and I cannot wait to be in that stadium baying for Mario Cristobal’s blood. My ticket and flights are already purchased, and I hope yours are as well. In preparation, let’s look back at that terrible night in Coral Gables and then…View LinkLast matchup: August 31, 2025 – Miami 27, Notre Dame 24This is going to be as painful for me as it so for you, but let’s look at it in detail because this is by far the biggest game Notre Dame has this year and we’d best hope they’re learning from it. Looking back at this game the biggest thing that stands out is the trench strength of Miami, which ultimately became the key to their run through the playoffs and national title appearance. The Canes were punishing on the defensive line as they constantly pressured CJ Carr