Miami one win from title game appearance. Only Ole Miss stands in the way
The Miami Hurricanes were all the talk during the lead up to the College Football Playoff. They were the center of the debate as to which teams should get the final spots in the 12-team field.
But once Miami got in, once the Hurricanes qualified as the No. 10 seed with the final at-large berth, the conversation that followed has primarily shifted to ... Miami’s opponents.
The first round was No. 7 Texas A&M, the Aggies’ home field advantage with a crowd of 110,00, the team looking to shake off its first loss of the season and take care of the team that barely slipped into the field. Miami gutted out a 10-3 win.
The quarterfinal was No. 2 Ohio State, the defending national champion, the No. 1 team for basically the entire season and the team that should be able to waltz its way back to the title game with its star-studded roster filled with All-Americans and a Heisman Trophy finalist quarterback. Miami won 24-14.
And now it’s the semifinal against the No. 6 Ole Miss Rebels (13-1) in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona (7:30 p.m., ESPN) with the winner advancing to the national championship game on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium — the Hurricanes’ home field. Ole Miss is a team, like Miami (12-2), that is on a magical ride through the postseason.
But most of the talk nationally is squaring on the Rebels as they continue to maneuver through the playoffs under the shadow of the chaos created after Lane Kiffin left to take the LSU head coaching job just before the postseason began. Assistants who are following Kiffin to LSU have been working two jobs at once, helping the Rebels win in the present while simultaneously trying to set LSU up for the future. A pair of those assistant coaches (wide receivers coach George McDonald and tight ends coach Joe Cox) have left all together and won’t be with Ole Miss for the semifinal, new Rebels head coach Pete Golding said.
But the Hurricanes are fine with the discourse not being on them. The fewer chances for distractions heading into kickoff, the better.
When it comes time for the game, they will let their play do the talking.
“We’re not really focused on, shoot, the good or the bad that people say about us,” Hurricanes running back Mark Fletcher Jr. said. “We know what we are, and we don’t really care what anybody else thinks. We’re just doing our job and having fun playing with each other.”
The Hurricanes have had a pretty fun ride as of late after nearly not making the playoffs at all.
UM was 6-2 on Nov. 1 after losing in overtime to SMU, its second defeat in a three-week span. The chances of making the playoff field looked bleak at that point.
“Personally,” edge rusher Akheem Mesidor said. “I did lose hope. I didn’t know what to expect. People already counted us out, and then being a two loss team, I just I didn’t see the committee letting us into the playoffs, even if we won out.”
Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal stopped the negativity right then and there, didn’t let it fester. A team meeting followed. Cristobal talked. Fletcher talked. Right guard Anez Cooper talked. Edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. talked.
They left with a simple message: “We’re not done.”
“Keep working,” Mesidor said. “We have to be on one now. No late [plays]. No missed assignments. Nothing. We have to damn near be perfect in order to win every single game and get to these playoffs.”
They did just that, crushing their final four regular-season opponents — Syracuse, NC State, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh — by a combined 151-41.
They’re still doing it, winning against two top-10 teams in their first two playoff games in two different ways.
And they don’t plan to stop any time soon. This is what Cristobal aspired for the Hurricanes to be when he came back to become the head coach of his alma mater ahead of the 2022 season. Miami hasn’t won a national championship since the 2001 season. It took Cristobal four seasons to get to this point, to get back to national relevance.
But there’s still so much more to accomplish, so there’s no celebrating and patting on the back just yet.
“It’s been a 20-plus-year journey to return and not take Miami back, but move Miami forward,” Cristobal said. “We’ve progressed a bunch, and we still have a ways to go. We’ve earned our way here, and we still have to earn every single play with the opportunity we have [Thursday] night. ... I don’t think those things are really assessed, analyzed and commented on until the season’s over. But are we excited and enthused about the progress? Absolutely. And do we have a ways to go? Yeah. We’re not even close to where we need to be, but we’re certainly excited to move forward and keep pressing on.”
And they Canes will have to press on against arguably the best offensive team they have played all season for a shot at competing for a national title.
The Rebels rank second nationally in yards per game (496.2), 15th in yards per play (6.69) and 10th in points per game (37.6). They have a dual-threat quarterback in Trinidad Chambliss (66.4% completion rate, 3,660 passing yards, 21 touchdowns against three interceptions, 520 rushing yards, eight rushing touchdowns), one of the top running backs in Kewan Lacy (1,464 rushing yards, 23 touchdowns) and five pass catchers with at least 568 receiving yards.
“There’s a lot of different guys that take the top off and can make some plays in space,” Hurricanes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman said. “They can get the quick game out there. I think they do a really good job, and then they go fast.”
And the Rebels have rallied around their ability to succeed throughout the playoff run despite everything surrounding the program. Golding has done an admiral job of keeping the focus internal despite so much uncertainty with day-to-day operations. Ole Miss has not had a drop-off in production, easily handling No. 11 seed Tulane 41-10 in the first round and then beating the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs 39-34 in the Sugar Bowl to get to the semifinal.
“It’s a team game,” Golding said. “There’s so many people that go into it, so the timing of when it happened, in my opinion, it couldn’t happen at a better time for the players because everything was already in place. Everything was on the track. It’s headed the right direction. We’ve got really good players. There was already a culture created. They knew the expectation. The only thing that was different is who’s running out of the tunnel, and to be honest with you, I don’t think the players give a damn who runs by the tunnel. They care about their plan. They care about getting held accountable and how they’re going to prepare. They care about people that care about them, all right? And I think that’s been the message our players have created.”
There’s a message being sent at Miami, too: They’re not done, not yet.
They’re one step from competing for a national championship. They’re not taking the opportunity for granted.
“All week I’ve just been telling guys: These are games you’ll share with your kids,” nickel cornerback Keionte Scott said. “You’ll sit down on the couch and show your kids this game. There’s definitely times we want to make sure we’re taking full advantage of just the smaller things, the little things. There are teams that are not competing, and we’re one of four teams that are. There’s definitely a moment where we soak it all in. But you’ve got to stay focused and live in the moment.”
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