The Miami (FL) football program made the College Football Playoff, sneaking in as the final at-large bid on Sunday. Miami is the no. 10 seed, upending other schools including Notre Dame. The CFP chair justified the move when speaking to the press.
“Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison (with ND) that everyone had been hungering for,” CFP chair Hunter Yurachek said, per ESPN.
The selection committee argued that the two schools' resumés were almost equal. Miami got the edge due to defeating Notre Dame months ago.
“The one metric we had to fall back on was the head-to-head,” Yurachek added.
Miami has the no. 10 seed and opens their CFP journey with a game against no. 7 seed Texas A&M. The two schools play on December 20.
Miami is the only ACC team in the College Football Playoff
The Hurricanes made an interesting case to the CFP selection committee. Miami didn't even make the ACC championship game. The two schools who did, Virginia and Duke, were both left out of the field.
Miami defeated Notre Dame in the first game of the season, which ultimately made the difference in the CFP rankings. Notre Dame lost another game right after that to Texas A&M, but then won 10 contests in a row. In the end, that run wasn't enough to give the Fighting Irish a bid.
Miami will represent the ACC now moving forward in this playoff. The Big 12 also got just one team in, as BYU was also snubbed by the committee. This season, Miami has two losses as does BYU.
The Hurricanes' losses this season were to Louisville and SMU in ACC conference play. Miami righted the ship with four consecutive wins to close the season.
