Keep playing with fire and eventually you will get burned.

Sure, it’s a worn-out cliché. But remember: most clichés are based on truth. So it was only a matter of time before Miami’s hopes for an undefeated season finally went up in smoke.

After coming back from double-digit deficits three times this season, the No. 4-ranked Hurricanes ultimately dug themselves into a hole from which star quarterback Cam Ward couldn’t dig them out.

Ward did what he could. He threw for 348 yards and 3 touchdowns against Georgia Tech on Saturday to give his team a chance to erase a late 12-point deficit. In the process, he became the first Miami quarterback to throw 30 TD passes in a season. Now at 32, Ward has a chance to reach 40.

But after leading improbable comebacks against Virginia Tech and Cal, and then sparking a second-half blitz to get past Duke last week, the Heisman Trophy frontrunner had no more rabbits to pull from his hat.

The Yellow Jackets’ 28-23 win was an upset and a result that all but guarantees the ACC will only have one team in this year’s Playoff.

But other than adding some extra intrigue and a much smaller margin of error for the Hurricanes over the final three weeks of the regular season, the result did little to shake up the race for the ACC Championship Game.

No. 13 SMU, which was inactive Saturday, is the only team with an undefeated conference record. Miami and Clemson are tied for second place with 1 loss. But because of tiebreakers, Miami and SMU are still on track to play each other on Dec. 7 in Charlotte for the league title and an automatic Playoff bid, as long as they both win.

Sounds simple.

But as we learned from this weekend’s results, nothing is simple when it comes to the ACC in general and Miami football in particular.

That’s just one of the things we learned about the ACC in Week 11. Here are some other key takeaways from the conference:

Who will knock them over? Who doesn’t?

Okay, so we’re pretty sure the ACC will only have one team in the Playoff. So let’s turn our attention to the football version of the NIT. All those other bowls that are on the postseason schedule between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Eight ACC teams have reached the six-win threshold for bowl eligibility.

Georgia Tech became the last to qualify for the postseason with its loss to Miami on Saturday. The Yellow Jackets join the Hurricanes, SMU, Clemson, Pitt, Louisville, Duke and Syracuse in the pool to fill the ACC’s 11 bowl tie-ins.

NC State and Virginia Tech each had a chance to join them. But both lost on Saturday, meaning they need at least one more win to avoid having to stay home for the holidays. Boston College, Cal and Virginia are in a similar situation after each earning their fifth win: the Eagles against Syracuse, the Bears against Wake Forest and the Cavaliers against Pitt.

While staying in bowl contention is a long shot for everyone else, only Florida State and Stanford have been mathematically eliminated.

The Devils are still defensive

The technical staff may have changed. This also applies to a large part of the staff. But Duke’s identity has remained the same despite the transition from Mike Elko to Manny Diaz.

The Blue Devils flexed their defensive muscles again on Saturday in a 29-19 win over NC State. They set the tone by sacking quarterback C.J. Bailey in the end zone on the Wolfpack’s second play of the game and kept the pressure on all day as they forced 8 tackles for loss, 7 quarterback hurries, 6 pass breakups and a few turnovers.

Duke limited its neighboring rival to just a single touchdown while forcing five field goal attempts to improve to 7-3 in the first season under Diaz, who like his predecessor was a successful defensive coordinator before becoming head coach.

Considering the changes that have taken place since Elko left for Texas A&M in the dead of night last December, the comparisons between the past two Blue Devil defenses are notable. Duke led the ACC in scoring defense with 19.0 points per game in 2023. It currently ranks in the top 4 with an average of 22.4. This year’s team is giving up fewer yards per game than last year (349.1-352.7), while allowing the fewest passing yards per game in the league at just 192.6.

It limited Bailey to 184 yards through the air and State to 268 total to get back on the winning track after two straight losses. Albeit to the top 2 teams in the conference, SMU and Miami.

Get your checkbook out again, Pat

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was fined $5,000 by the ACC earlier this season for publicly criticizing the officials who worked on his team’s win against West Virginia.

“We beat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl and we also beat the officials in one match,” he said.

If Narduzzi was so excited about the calls in a game his team won, you can only imagine how out of shape he must have been after Saturday’s fourth-quarter refereeing debacle after a loss to Virginia that ended any chance of a breakthrough from Pitt to the top of the club was ended. the conference championship game. He would have the right to rob the officials again.

Regardless of the costs.

Pitt trailed by 2 with just over 5 minutes left when it appeared to stop the Cavaliers on a 4th-and-1 play. But because referee Nate Black ruled his team was out of position when the ball was snapped, the play was negated and UVa was given another opportunity to make the first down.

The Cavaliers took advantage of the rethink to extend their drive, eating another three minutes off the clock and scoring a field goal that forced Pitt to score a touchdown instead of just a field goal to take the lead. We will never know what might have happened if the original piece had stood. But we can say with 100% certainty that it completely changed the dynamics of the game.

This controversy is the latest in a series of issues involving ACC referees this season. And Narduzzi isn’t the only coach who has been critical of them. Louisville’s Jeff Brohm and Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry have also weighed in on questionable, game-changing calls. It’s an issue that the league must take steps to resolve this offseason to avoid further damage to credibility.

Clemson still can’t get a kick out of it

The Tigers’ place-kicking situation was so bad last year that Dabo Swinney literally pulled a former player with one year of eligibility left from the beach to rejoin the team and handle the field goal and extra point chores. This season the kicker wasn’t the problem. But the players up front who should protect him.

Freshman Nolan Hauer is 12 of 17 in field goal percentage this season. All five of his misses were blocked. Two of those came in a win at Florida State, caused by what Swinney described as bad luck on the left side of the line. He had the same explanation for the next two, last week’s loss to Louisville. Swinney addressed the problem by making some personnel changes to the field goal unit.

So what happened on Saturday?

Hauer had another kick blocked. This time the ball came from the middle of the line and resulted in a Virginia Tech touchdown when the Hokies’ Quentin Reddish caught the ball and returned it 77 yards for the score. In case you’re wondering, Mike Reed is Clemson’s special teams coach. But maybe not for long.

The Bears are finally bullish

Former North Carolina, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech coach Bill Dooley had a unique way of saying something good about every opponent his team played.

No matter how bad it was.

One of my favorites is when he called Tulane, or Te-lane as it sounded in his signature Southern accent: “the best winless team in America.”

Cal wasn’t exactly winless going into the weekend. It is actually undefeated against non-conference competition. But going 0-4 against the ACC in the league’s first season, an argument can be made that the Bears were the best last-place team to go winless in the conference.

Justin Wilcox’s team leads the conference in scoring defense allowing just 19.3 points per game. Their 17 interceptions are also the best in the league, while their 29 sacks are the second-highest. And at 28.7 points per game, the Bears also rank in the top 10 in offensive scoring.

They’re good enough to lead No. 4 Miami by 25 points in the second half. Just not good enough to close out matches. Their four ACC losses total by 9 points. Their luck changed Friday at Wake Forest.

Cal did its best to cough up another lead by letting the Deacons cut a 15-point lead to just a field goal in the fourth quarter. This time, however, it answered with a late touchdown to hold on for the 46-36 victory.

Now that the Bears have finally broken the ice in the conference, the atmosphere around them has changed dramatically. With an overall score of 5-4, they are just one win away from making the bowl. And with a season-ending game at SMU, they could potentially have a say in both the ACC Championship Game matchup.