College football defensive stop rate after Week 14 - ESPN

Miami continues to find itself on the outside looking in for a spot in the College Football Playoff despite a 10-2 record powered by a defense that ranks among the best in the country in stop rate.

What is stop rate? It's a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense's drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. Defensive coordinators have the same goal regardless of their scheme, opponent or conference: prevent points and get off the field. Stop rate is a simple metric but can offer a good reflection of a defense's effectiveness on a per-drive basis in today's faster-tempo game.

Stop rate is not an advanced stat and is no substitute for Bill Connelly's SP+, FPI or other more comprehensive metrics. It's merely a different method for evaluating success on defense against FBS opponents. Here's the current leaderboard at the conclusion of the regular season:

With the regular season over, here's Max Olson's defensive metric on how good a team is at stopping an opponent from scoring on each drive.

The Hurricanes moved up to No. 6 in stop rate at 75.8% in the final regular-season stop rate standings following a 38-7 rout of No. 22 Pitt on Saturday. They held Pitt star freshman Mason Heintschel to 199 passing yards, forced punts on six of 10 drives and improved to 4-0 against ranked opponents on the year.

But will that be enough to stay in the hunt for an at-large bid in the eyes of the CFP committee? The Hurricanes will not play for the ACC title and are squarely on the bubble.

Miami handled its business on defense in November following its overtime loss at SMU, allowing 10.25 points per game over its last four with a stop rate of 83.3%, and is one of five teams along with Ohio State, Indiana,