UM laments Lucas targeting decision. And Canes quick hits before kickoff
Some UM quick hits as we close in on kickoff of the Hurricanes-Hoosiers championship game (7:30 p.m., ESPN):
▪ One of the most questionable and peculiar rules in college sports will cost the Canes a heavy rotation player for half of tonight’s game. And it’s a rule that UM says must be re-evaluated.
Because of that NCAA rule, UM cornerback Xavier Lucas was ineligible to play in the first half of Monday’s championship game after being called for targeting during the second half of UM’s semifinal win against Mississippi.
Under the current rule, players who are ejected for targeting during the first half of a game are permitted to play the entirety of the following game. But players suspended in the second half are not.
“We feel it was unjustly administered, and now it impacts the last game of the season,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “We do have the ability, again, as an officiating crew and the powers that be to revisit that to give every team due process and their best ability to compete in this game.”
Lucas said: “I really didn’t agree with the call, but it is what it is. Still got to go out there and play football when I get my chance.”
There was no talk of an appeal, according to On3.com. It very likely would have been unsuccessful anyway.
▪ Quarterback Carson Beck and Cristobal bristled over the weekend when out-of-town media asked them about this being a Cinderella run for UM as a 10th seed. Cristobal dismissed the question.
Beck said: “I don’t believe it’s a Cinderella run. There was a time in the season where we were the No. 2-ranked team in the country. I think a lot of people forget that. Obviously we dropped two games in there where we lost by three points and we lost in overtime. Honestly, one of those games I probably played my worst game ever.
“I don’t think it’s right to call it a Cinderella run. I think it’s a very talented football team regardless of seeds. The number next to your name and the football playoff seeding doesn’t matter at all.”
▪ Though UM will be on the visitor’s sideline as the designated road team in the game, the Canes get to keep their same locker room.
The team stayed at the Fontainebleau on Miami Beach the past three nights and were able to have more meetings than usual.
“Personally for me, I love it,” Beck said. “I think that having the opportunity to go stay in the hotel a couple days early just allows you to focus and lock in and only be around football. ... Especially at this time in the season and the playoffs, and you don’t have any extracurriculars, it’s literally football, sleep, football, sleep, and that’s how it goes.
“Being in the hotel, you’re around your teammates more. You’re around the coaches more. You’re able to go and ask questions by walking downstairs to a meeting room as opposed to having to drive into the facility and doing it that way. I love it.”
▪ Safety Jakobe Thomas said UM players and coaches addressed the fact that the Canes dropped four interceptions against Mississippi, and it won’t happen again.
“That was not OK,” Thomas said. “That was addressed right after the game. That’s been something that all the DBs have been working on all week is making sure we’re catching the ball and capitalizing on those opportunities. But those guys [Indiana’s skill position players] don’t make mistakes, and they will capitalize on those mistakes. So we have to get the ball.”
▪ ESPN’s Jordan Rodgers predicted a UM win because he believes the Canes will get pressure on Fernando Mendoza without blitzing.
▪ ESPN’s Louis Riddick, who worked previously in NFL front offices, said he believes Carson Beck can rise to the end of the first round with a big game tonight. Most project him as a second- or third-day pick.
▪ North Carolina coach Bill Belichick will appear as an analyst on ACC Network’s pregame show at 6 p.m.
This story was originally published January 19, 2026 at 2:45 PM.
