CFB Week 14 Preview (National):
#1 Ohio State-#18 Michigan, #13 Miami-#24 Pitt,
#25 SMU-Cal Matchups Carry Big Repercussions
(DG’s “This Week In CFB” YouTube Show = Below)
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Nov. 26, 2025)
The 2025 college football regular season comes to a close Saturday with a compelling Week 14 schedule.
The most prominent games nationally this time (each previewed below) include intra-league clashes on Saturday involving College Football Playoff contenders from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten: #1 Ohio State at #18 Michigan (noon, FOX), #13 Miami at #24 Pittsburgh (noon, ABC) and #25 SMU at California (8 p.m., ESPN2).
Meanwhile, in and near the Old North State, the long-standing Wake Forest-Duke and UNC-NC State rivalries resume, and #19 Virginia hosts Virginia Tech with an opportunity to reach the ACC championship game.
Here are more details on our “Three To See” selections from this week’s national schedule:
National “Three To See,” Game One
#1 Ohio State (11-0) at #18 Michigan (9-2), Sat., noon (FOX)
Both the past and the present of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry offer something intriguing.
Did you know? The winningest programs in college football history are Michigan at #1, with the Wolverines well beyond the 1,000-victory mark, and Ohio State at #2 all-time, with 983 wins. In addition, the Buckeyes and Wolverines are first and second, respectively, in all-time winning percentage, with both schools — along with Alabama and Notre Dame — just above the 73 percent mark. Meanwhile, in three consecutive recent seasons — 2021, 2022 and 2023 — the most-watched college football game of the entire regular season was Ohio State-Michigan.
These are some of the facts behind the reality that, when the nickname of your rivalry matchup is simply “The Game,” there’s probably going to be about a century or so’s worth of impressive history behind it.
Fast forward to the present, and you have multiple intriguing aspects of this highly anticipated matchup on Saturday afternoon, especially with this game being played at what Michigan fans call “The Big House,” which is the third-largest open-air stadium in the world. Michigan Stadium’s 107,601 capacity ranks behind only an Indian cricket venue and a North Korean stadium used for sports and political purposes.
Obviously, Ohio State (a nine-point favorite) was last year’s national champion, the Buckeyes are 11-0 and ranked #1 this season, they play top-five offense and top-five defense, they’re loaded with NFL prospects, and their sophomore quarterback Julian Sayin — in his first year as the starter — is among the top candidates for this year’s Heisman Trophy.
Since its season-opening 14-7 win over Texas, Ohio State has absolutely annihilated every team in its path, although this Michigan squad may be its toughest opponent since that game against the Longhorns, which was almost three months ago now. The Wolverines’ only losses this season came at Oklahoma (a probable playoff team) and at Southern Cal.
If Michigan is going to have a chance in this one, its true freshman dual-threat quarterback Bryce Underwood — last year’s National Player of the Year in the high school ranks — is going to have to play much better than he did against the Sooners and the Trojans, who both shut down Underwood’s running lanes and forced him to try to beat them from the pocket.
Expect the same basic approach from an Ohio State defense (directed by long-time NFL coordinator Matt Patricia) that’s extremely confident and absolutely loaded with elite athletes, so the Wolverines probably will need to generate several big plays and win the turnover battle just to have a chance in this one.
National “Three To See,” Game Two
#13 Miami (9-2) at #24 Pittsburgh (8-3), Sat., noon (ABC)
Technically, both Miami and Pittsburgh are among the six ACC teams that still have a mathematical chance of making the ACC championship game next week, but both the Hurricanes and the Panthers know that they need to both win this head-to-head matchup on Saturday and get lucky with an unlikely combination of results in other games, all of which are being played later in the day.
So, basically, after the winner of this contest — whoever it is — enjoys some celebration time, those coaches and players and their fans quickly will become cheerleaders, rooting for Virginia Tech to upset Virginia and Cal to upset SMU (both of those are night games) and even some other tiebreaker-related results that aren’t worth fully exploring here.
Regarding the game itself, three intriguing elements jump out as fourth-year Miami coach Mario Cristobal visits 11th-year Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi.
First, the only two teams that have defeated Miami this season — Louisville and SMU — both have very good defenses that limited the Hurricanes’ offense in ways that most others did not. Like the Cardinals and the Mustangs, Pitt (a six-point underdog) has been very good on defense for most of this season, so there’s at least a possibility that the Panthers can bother Miami quarterback Carson Beck and disrupt the Canes’ talented offensive line in ways, again, that most others could not.
Second, Pitt has gone 6-1 — including last week’s impressive win at Georgia Tech, which probably killed the Yellow Jackets’ ACC title hopes — since elevating true freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel into a starting role.
Finally, the College Football Playoff committee will be watching this one closely, because there’s a chance that 10-2 Notre Dame and 10-2 Miami (if both win this weekend) will be among the candidates for the final at-large spot in this year’s 12-team bracket.
Despite the fact that the Hurricanes beat the Irish way back on Aug. 31, Notre Dame has been consistently ranked higher than the Canes, even though UM has the same record and the undeniable head-to-head advantage.
When the Irish visited Pitt just two weeks ago, they posted a dominant 37-15 victory. If the Hurricanes can’t do something similar — not just win, but dominate — against the Panthers on Saturday afternoon, it will give the committee one more reason to favor the Irish.
National “Three To See,” Game Three
#25 SMU (8-3) at California (6-5), Sat., 8 p.m. (ESPN2)
The SMU football program was one of the worst in all of major college football from 1985 through 2018, a period of 34 consecutive seasons.
During that miserable stretch, in which they rarely posted winning records and appeared in only five run-of-the-mill bowl games, the Mustangs bounced around from the old Southwest Conference to the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA to the American Conference, going through eight head coaches along the way.
The most memorable landmark of that long-term downfall, of course, is commonly called the Death Penalty Case, in which the NCAA imposed some of its harshest sanctions ever — including the cancellation of the Mustangs’ entire 1987 season — on the SMU football program, after school officials and boosters were caught paying players even after the Mustangs were already on probation for a litany of previous major rules violations. The wrongdoing also included high-ranking university officials repeatedly lying to the NCAA, bribing people to remain silent about the wrongdoing, and a wide variety of other purposeful deceit.
That extended backdrop is worth mentioning because it underlines the truly stunning nature of how SMU has turned its gridiron program around, even to the point of chasing and winning championships.
Coach Sonny Dykes (now at TCU) got things going with three straight winning seasons from 2019 through 2021, and now fourth-year head coach Rhett Lashlee has taken the Mustangs to the next level.
Consider the past three seasons. In 2023, SMU’s last as a member of the American Conference, the Mustangs went a perfect 8-0 in league play, beat Tulane in the conference title game, and finished 11-3 overall, with a Top 25 end-of-season ranking. In 2024, their first season in the ACC, SMU again went a perfect 8-0 in league play, then lost to Clemson in the ACC title game, but made the College Football Playoff and finished with its second straight 11-3 record and a #11 final national ranking.
Here in 2025, those themes have continued. The Mustangs are back in the Top 25, they are 13-point favorites at Cal on Saturday, and a win over the Bears — who just fired head coach Justin Wilcox — will make them 9-3, punch their ticket to a third straight conference title game, and leave open the possibility of a second consecutive trip to the CFP.
The Mustangs can get there only with a win at Cal and a victory in Charlotte next week, but at this point, it’s getting harder and harder to bet against them.
NOTE: For the in-state edition of our Week 14 college football preview, including analysis on the highest-profile games, plus schedules and TV/streaming options for all 32 teams (FBS, FCS, Division Two, Division Three) in the Bold North State, please click HERE.
