When all was said and done, the College Football Playoff selection committee deemed Miami worthy.
The Hurricanes are No. 10 in the final rankings, securing a spot in the playoff bracket. Miami (10-2) will face Texas A&M (11-1) at noon on Dec. 20 in the first round. UM will have its first postseason opportunity to compete for a national title since the 2002 season, which ended with a controversial loss to Ohio State in the national title game.
“We are excited to be making our first appearance in the College Football Playoff,” Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a press release. “Congratulations to Mario Cristobal, our coaching staff and our student-athletes on a terrific regular season that was justly rewarded by the CFP Committee. We look forward to facing Texas A&M in the opening round and I know Miami fans will make their presence felt in College Station.”
Miami jumped into the bracket following a series of fortunate events during the conference title games on Saturday. BYU lost a blowout to Texas Tech, which pushed the then-No. 11 Cougars behind the Hurricanes. Later in the day, then-No. 9 Alabama suffered a three-touchdown loss to Georgia and scored just seven points.
“There’s always a little bit of just waiting around and a little bit of anxiety,” Miami Cristobal said in an interview with ESPN. “But overall, we felt really confident. We felt confident because as long as everybody just kind of abided by the criteria, that we would be in a good place. And thankfully, that was the case, and now we have this awesome opportunity.”
The loss dropped BYU out of playoff contention. The committee ranked Miami ahead of Notre Dame, taking the head-to-head result from Week 1 into account despite ranking the Fighting Irish ahead of the Hurricanes in each previous ranking.
“The first move in that was we felt like the way BYU performed in their championship game — a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion — was worthy of Miami moving ahead of them in the rankings,” selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said. “And once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungry for with Notre Dame and Miami. And you look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against their common opponents.
“But the one metric we had to fall back on again was the head-to-head. I charged the committee members to go back and watch that game again, the Miami-Notre Dame game, because it was so far back. And we got some interesting debate from our coaches on what that game looked like as we watched it. And with that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame into that 10 spot.”
The Hurricanes’ trip to the playoff comes after a week of high-level lobbying that started with Cristobal and included Radakovich, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and many members of the national college football and general sports media. The controversy even reached Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a UF alumnus).
“You know that there’s a lot of reality behind it when a Florida Gator speaks up for a Miami Hurricane,” Cristobal said Wednesday.
Miami was campaigning hard to get in ahead of Notre Dame, which UM beat in Week 1 of the season but consistently ranked ahead of the Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff rankings. The two teams ended the season with identical records and similar computer metrics.
THE CANES ARE PLAYOFF BOUND 🙌 pic.twitter.com/1TYGgZlU5D
— Miami Hurricanes (@MiamiHurricanes) December 7, 2025
If the Hurricanes make it past Texas A&M in the first round of the playoffs, their path to a national title will be difficult. Waiting for the winner of the Aggies/Hurricanes game is No. 2 Ohio State, which was the No. 1 team in the nation for nearly the entire season before losing to Indiana in the Big 10 title game on Saturday. The winner of Miami-Texas A&M would face the Buckeyes in the Cotton Bowl.
“They’re an excellent football team,” Cristobal said of the Aggies. “They really don’t have any weaknesses. They’re big, they’re fast, they’re explosive. They have playmakers all over the field. I know that they do some incredible work on third down. Really exotic, but they play with a lot of power up front. They knock people around really well. And if you watch them on the perimeter, again, they can hurt you on both sides. They can play man, they can play zone. On the offensive side, they have so many guys that can run by you, run through you. Just a team that is a very complete football team and one we’re looking forward to playing.”
The Aggies started the season 11-0, beating Notre Dame early in the year. But Texas A&M lost to rival Texas on the road in the final week of the regular season, costing the Aggies a shot at an undefeated regular season and the SEC title.
“I’m sure (the Hurricanes will) be fired up to prove that they belong, to be in, with all the rhetoric around it,” Aggies coach Mike Elko said in an ESPN interview. “And so we’ll have our hands full in a couple weeks.”
