OSU just won the CFB Playoff National Championship Game. The Buckeyes are the most talented team in college football and have an experienced coaching staff with NFL chops and head coaching experience. Can Miami compete at that level in ‘25?
The Ohio State Buckeyes just won the College Football Playoff National Championship after not even winning the Big Ten Conference. OSU has an experienced playoff head coach in Ryan Day, a former NFL and P5 head coach in Chip Kelly, and a former FCS head coach and veteran DC in Jim Knowles.
OSU also had a 90% Blue Chip Ratio (we’ll get into that later), an extremely veteran defense that added Caleb Downs at Safety, and an offense that gave itself a shot in the arm with a transfer QB (Will Howard) and star running back in former SEC standout Quinshon Judkins.
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
The Buckeyes took their extremely talented roster, added two SEC stars to it, and proved that the Big Ten is the conference to beat right now.
This begs the question- can Miami win the title in 2025? That would require the ‘Canes to win 11 games in the regular season and play for the ACC Championship to even get in the door. Once in the playoff, Miami would then have to win 3-4 games against the top competition in the country.
I polled X (Twitter) about the State Of The U. I asked the followers “Where is Miami the furthest away from winning a national title?” The possible answers were: Explosive Playmakers (Judkins, Jeremiah Smith, Downs), Coaching Ability (Day, Kelly, Knowles), Depth of Talent (a backfield of TreVeyon Henderson and Judkins, a WR corps with Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate) or something else entirely.
Where is Miami the furthest away from winning a national title?
— imfb_blog (@IMFB_Blog) January 21, 2025
Coaching Ability came in at first with 44% of the votes. Where OSU loaded up on veteran coaches to hope to overcome some of Day’s shortcomings- Miami has leaned on less experienced coordinators with zero head coaching experience.
Mario Cristobal’s biggest areas of concern are game day coaching and yet Miami just hired a DC, Corey Hetherman, with zero head coaching experience and only one year of P4 DC experience to boot.
In the strength and conditioning department- OSU has Mickey Marotti. Marotti has now won four national titles in his role as the S&C Coordinator. Position coaches like the recruiting guru Brian Hartline and defensive line coach Larry Johnson are NFL producing machines at their positions.
With all of this said- OSU still lost to Oregon, Michigan, and had to backdoor into the playoff!
Explosive Playmakers came in second in the poll with 30% of the vote while Depth of talent came in at 13%. Now those aren’t exactly the same thing regarding Blue Chip Ratio. But first, depth of talent:
On Bud Elliott’s BCR, Miami has a solid 61% of the roster as a four or five star. Notre Dame, for instance, had a 67% BCR, while Ohio State’s sat at an FBS leading 90%.
Photo by Samuel Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
For explosive playmakers- at what positions are those blue chips playing? For Miami, the Hurricanes are being “build along the lines” with the likes of Francis Mauigoa, Rueben Bain Jr., Samson Okunlola, Justin Scott, and Armondo Blount.
Offensive and defensive line absolutely matter as the College Football Playoff National Championship Game came down to offensive line play for OSU who pushed Notre Dame around to bleed the clock.
Photo by Perry McIntyre/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Quarterback might not be as necessary of a blue chip spot as once believed. Will Howard and Riley Leonard were three-star prospects out of high school and four-star transfer prospects. Meanwhile star prep QB’s like Arch Manning, Quinn Ewers, and Cade Klubnik failed to make the title game.
But Miami has lost four of their top ‘explosive’ threats from a year ago in Damien Martinez, Cam Ward, Xavier Restrepo and Elijah Arroyo. UM will attempt to replace their production with UGA’s Carson Beck, LSU’s CJ Daniels, and Tulane’s Alex Bauman.
Arroyo averaged almost 17 yards per catch while Bauman comes in under 10 YPC over his career. Daniels had an elite season at Liberty but a pedestrian one with the move up to the SEC from the CUSA as he failed to score a TD last season.
Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
When it comes to depth of talent not many teams can overcome losing their starting QB- including UGA. Beck’s elbow injury forced the Bulldogs to turn to Gunner Stockton and the Dawgs offense was held to 10 points by the Irish defense. We all saw what QB Emory Williams brought to the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
But Miami doesn’t currently have the luxury to lose Mark Fletcher for a pair of games let alone the season. Miami’s “go to WR” has yet to emerge with Isaiah Horton heading to Alabama and Restrepo off to the NFL. Miami lost TE’s Riley Williams (Oregon State) and Arroyo (NFL).
On the defensive side, Simeon Barrow Jr. is being replaced by Louisiana Tech transfer David Blay. Not exactly a one-for-one plug and play compared to a Big Ten DT. The Miami defensive backfield should be much improved- but it will be five guys who have never suited up together rather than plugging one new player in (Downs) to a group of guys that know each other, and the system.
To be the best…
I hate sitting here comparing my favorite team to one of my absolute least favorite teams- but such is life when they’re the best in the country. So can Miami win the national title in 2025? I don’t think so. Should the ‘Canes compete in the ACC and play for the ACC Championship? Absolutely. But, that’ll come down to coaching ability, depth of talent and explosive playmakers.