MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — In the final Miami home game of the season, Hurricane fans will get to watch the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division champions.

They just won’t be cheering for them.

Fortunes for Pitt and Miami have reversed in the last 12 months. The Panthers and Hurricanes are meeting in a regular-season finale for the second straight year — but this time, it’s No. 24 Pitt (7-4, 6-1, No. 24 College Football Playoff) that comes in already having clinched the Coastal and Miami (6-5, 3-4) enduring a year where its brief reign atop the division ended and tons of problems presented themselves.

Pitt has a date with Clemson for the ACC title next weekend, but the Panthers aren’t resting Saturday.

“We’re playing,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said. “There’s nobody not playing.”

Miami can’t say the same.

Jeff Thomas — the Hurricanes’ best receiver and returner, a speedster and one of the few bright spots in an offense that has sputtered often this season — won’t be playing this weekend, or ever again for Miami. The Hurricanes say he was dismissed from the team; Thomas insists that’s not the case and that it was a mutual decision. Either way, he’s gone.

“We’ve tried to build a team that is united,” said Miami coach Mark Richt, whose club snapped a four-game slide with a win at Virginia Tech last weekend. “Usually, when you go through hard times, it reveals whether you have unity. ... You figure out if you’re strong or not.”

These two teams epitomize what the Coastal is about this year. Pitt had zero first-place votes in the league’s preseason poll. Miami was the overwhelming preseason pick. The Panthers wound up winning the division, with their only ACC loss so far coming to North Carolina — the team that will finish last in the Coastal.

“Anybody can beat anybody,” Narduzzi said. “It’s very, very competitive, and that’s the way you want it. But it’s a great conference, and it’s a great division from top to bottom.”