After going all-in on the 2024 season, Miami comes up snake eyes.
After ESPN decided the best show would be dicking around for the better part of an hour, the news we didn’t want but knew for weeks was coming was finally confirmed. On Sunday afternoon, the College Football Playoff bracket was revealed and the Miami Hurricanes were left out of the 12-team field.
After being a top team through the majority of the 2024 season, led by ACC Overall and Offensive Player of the Year QB Cam Ward, Miami stumbled in November. The Canes lost on the road at Georgia Tech and in the regular season finale at Syracuse. Those losses kept Miami out of the ACC Championship game, and gave the committee the thing they’d been looking for: a reason to keep Miami out in favor of an SEC team .
Let me be clear here: Miami lost games and that’s what started this conversation. It’s entirely on them for losing. But a 10-2 team with the #1 offense in America should not be ranked behind a 9-3 team with loses to a pair of 6-6 teams, including a 3 touchdown loss to the worst Oklahoma team in 50 years. But, SEC Bias is gonna SEC Bias….
There are other teams with qualms about the rankings and seedings, but I’m a Miami alum and this is a Miami site so I’ll leave those conversations to others elsewhere.
In terms of Miami, two things are true: they’ve been left out of the CFP — something that makes more sense after Clemson won the ACC Championship game YET AGAIN and stole a bid, and the fact that Miami was waiting at the mercy of the decisions of a clearly and blatantly biases College Football Playoff committee is entirely their own fault. Miami should have won those games. They didn’t. That’s on them.
This is a bitter disappointment for the Canes. They spent tons of money in the transfer portal, and went all-in on this season after getting the best QB in the country to transfer to The U. The schedule was there. The talent was there. Arguably the best QB in program history — reminder, Miami has a pair of Heisman Trophy winners at this position to their previous credit — was there. And, despite all of that, Miami didn’t even make it to the ACC Championship game. And now, they’ll have to watch others compete in the College Football Playoffs while they wait for a bid to the Pop Tarts bowl or something.
We’ll be here for whatever’s next, but what’s now — being left out of the College Football Playoffs — sucks. Deserved or not, it flat out sucks.
Oh well.
There’s always next year.