"“The best part about football is you get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the number one criteria for anything regarding athletics and football.”"
CORAL GABLES, FL– It is official, the Miami Hurricanes have been slotted as the 10th seed by the college football committee. Miami will face off against No. 7 Texas A&M on December 20th at 12:00pm EST.
Mario Cristobal said it best, “The best part about football is you get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the number one criteria for anything regarding athletics and football.” The committee has finally honored the head-to-head criteria that sports fans, analysts, coaches, and players have fallen on for the history of time. They made it difficult, but in the end the committee made the right decision to put Miami in over Notre Dame.
Against all odds, the Canes who after last night’s conference championship games were given a 22% chance to make the playoffs, defy all odds and surge past Notre Dame who was given an 82% chance to make the playoffs. Miami nearly cost themselves the bid to the playoffs after losses to unranked Louisville and unranked SMU. The Canes found themselves in a major hole, dropping to the 18th ranked team in the country, but they found a way to dig themselves up and out of the hole. Let’s take a look how they did it:
With a 3 point loss to Louisville and an overtime loss to SMU, the Canes had no other choice than to win outright and do it in commanding fashion. After suffering the loss to SMU, they went on to face Syracuse where they won by four touchdowns. After that, they took on NC State and put up 41 points, while only allowing 7. Following NC State, they played against future James Franklin’s squad in Virginia Tech and commanded a 17 point win. Finally, possibly the most indicative reason they solidified themselves as improving and showing their strength is their win over No. 22 Pittsburgh in a commanding fashion scoring 38 points, while only allowing 7.
The committee needed to see that Miami is a serious contender, or will they fold under the pressure. The Canes proved themselves worthy as they battled and persevered through their remaining schedule. Not to mention, they did it in a more commanding fashion than Notre Dame who also played 4 common opponents. In those common opponent games [NC State, Pitt, Syracuse, and Stanford] Miami won in a more outright fashion in three of four. Oh and not to mention, the committee finally honored the head to head that took place between Notre Dame and Miami at the beginning of the year, a game in which Miami handled the Fighting Irish.
Carson Beck Heads Back To The College Playoffs
Carson Beck has led the Canes back to the playoffs. Carson Beck is no stranger in the college football playoffs, having two rings as the backup to Stetson Bennett. This is the first time he is in the new era of the CFP, and has a chance to win his very own ring commanding the offensive side of the ball for the Canes.
Carson Beck has proved himself as one of the best quarterbacks in all of college football. If you take away the Louisville game where he threw 4 picks, he’d sit at 6 picks for the whole season. He leads in completion percentage (74.7%) and quarterback ranking (165.8) in the ACC. He threw for over 3000 yards in the regular season with 25 touchdowns. Just an incredible year for Beck, and he will look for more as the playoffs commence.
Key Stat
Miami had a 22% chance to make the playoffs but surged past Notre Dame's 82%.
