Cote: Ranking 9-3 Alabama over 10-2 Miami shows flaws in 12-team College Football Playoff | Opinion
Righteous, fist-shaking indignation on behalf of the Miami Hurricanes would be a tough sell. I get that.
They had the control over the College Football Playoff in their own hands. And by their own failure, when it counted most, the Canes gave away that control and placed it in the hands of Warde Manuel and other voting members of the CFP selection committee.
Miami could have survived the loss to Georgia Tech had it beaten Syracuse in the regular-season finale, but it lost that, too ... after leading, 21-0. That should haunt UM fans, players and coach Mario Cristobal for a long while. Up 21-0, Miami had a foot in the ACC Championship Game and the 12-team CFP.
In a wide-open year in college football, that meant, up 21-0, the Hurricanes had plausible hope to win the school’s sixth national title and first since 2001.
Then everything changed. Crashed. Disintegrated.
What had been a season sailing high at 9-0 is now one that feels wasted at 10-2. One needing a miracle.
The CFP in seeding Miami No. 12 in its latest rankings all-but-assured UM would be the odd man out after conference championship games are played and the five automatic bids are doled out.
When the sport increased from a four-team playoff to 12 this season, what we are seeing was predictable. The debate and controversy (both good for the sport) would go on. There would be an outcry for the school that just missed, and finished an unlucky 13th.
I never imagined that school might be Miami — first because I doubted the Canes, off a 7-6 season, would be that good. And then because I doubted that Miami, at 9-0, would fall so hard so late.
Yes: That blown lead at Syracuse, with absolutely everything at stake, makes it tough to dispassionately feel real sorry for the Canes’ self-inflicted predicament.
Yet even so, they have gotten a raw deal ... or at least an unlucky one.
The 10-2 Canes, lost their two games to bowl-headed conference teams with winning records by a combined nine points. Georgia Tech took Georgia to eight overtimes before losing. Syracuse finished 9-3 with three top-25 wins.
No. 11-ranked Alabama at 9-3 lost their three games by a combined 33 points. Two of those losses were to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, teams that finished 6-6.
Miami had two losses, both to good teams.
Alabama had three losses, only one to a good team.
I’m no Archimedes, but, as I recall from the teachings of mathematics, 10 wins is more than nine wins. Did victories stop being the bottom line, the very point of sports, when we weren’t looking?
Miami should have been ranked higher than Bama, period.
The Canes just had their CFP spot taken away by that selection committee’s fumes of infatuation with the SEC even as college football enjoys fresh parity. Miami just lost to the Alabama name and lingering perfume of what Nick Saban built.
Program stature does matter. It’s the intangible selectors might not admit to but do consider.
So why didn’t Miami get any credit for not only the five national championships -- but currently for Heisman-candidate quarterback Cam Ward and the nation’s highest scoring offense?
As for the trope about Miami’s weak schedule, UM beat 9-3 Duke, 8-4 Louisville and 7-5 Florida, the latter two on the road. And neither of Miami’s losses was to a team with a losing record, which some other teams ranked higher cannot say.
If the CFP is a made-for-TV event — and it is — I can swear to you Miami is a bigger brand, a bigger TV draw than, say, Indiana. Or the Mountain West’s Boise State, which has star running back Ashton Jeanty, but is nevertheless, still, well ... Boise State.
There is no denying the bottom line we said at the outset: That 21-0 blown lead in the loss at Syracuse was Miami losing grip on everything it had worked for — itself to blame.
Still, the CFP committee might have fairly judged the entirety of Miami’s season with a ranking that saw the Hurricanes worthy of one of the dozen playoff spots.
It failed to do so, instead punishing Miami by very generously rewarding a three-loss Alabama.
It is the nature of the beast, I suppose, that some team in as a dubious choice will always cause some team to be unfortunately left out.
Intrinsically, a 12-team College Football Playoff may never be agreed upon as perfect and fair. Alas, that starts with this first iteration.
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 3:10 PM.
