For better or worse, college football is now an investment game. While money has always been a measuring stick of sorts in how much you’re paying your coach or how much you’re putting into facilities, the introduction of player compensation has completely changed how we look at these things.
In the past, coaches could often explain away why a certain aspect of their program was underperforming, spinning the conversation toward the time it takes to build a program or blaming something like administrative deficiencies or a recruiting hurdle.
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Some programs can still make those excuses.
Miami, on the other hand, cannot.
In a town brimming with the illusion of wealth and surgically altered body parts, where it sometimes seems like only the tans are real, Miami has perpetrated yet another scam on the American people.
Pretending to be an elite program isn’t exactly a crime, but goodness gracious are the Hurricanes good at making their fans feel swindled.
After a 26-20 overtime loss at SMU, let’s look at the big picture.
For two straight years, Miami has had what’s widely recognized as one of the most well-paid rosters in college football, this year’s evidence being a reported multi-million dollar deal with quarterback Carson Beck to transfer from Georgia to Miami. And that’s one year after Miami got Cam Ward to transfer for one year before he became the No. 1 NFL Draft pick.
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And what has Miami gotten out of having two prime NFL quarterback prospects, arguably the most talented roster in the ACC and a schedule that does not ask all that much of them to make the College Football Playoff?
Unless everything breaks Miami’s way from here on out, head coach Mario Cristobal is going to be 0-for-2 on making the 12-team playoff.
With a lot of money to build a roster. With this easy of a schedule. And after banking a Week 1 win over Notre Dame that gave the Canes some margin for error.
But not this much.
The issue now is that, with losses to Louisville and SMU, a 10-2 record may not be good enough for Miami. The Hurricanes need to get lucky, or they need to make the ACC championship game and win the automatic bid, which will require them to survive a thicket of tiebreakers at best given what the standings look like now.
Carson Beck and the Miami Hurricanes are 6-2 now and may not have a path to the College Football Playoff. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
(Stacy Revere via Getty Images)
Miami has had every chance to be a playoff team. Last year, all Cristobal needed to do was hold onto 21-0 lead at Syracuse in the final game of the regular season. He couldn’t do it. This year, Beck threw a pick with Miami driving late against Louisville. He did the same in overtime against SMU.
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If the Hurricanes go 10-2 in back-to-back years without a playoff spot to show for it, nobody will feel sorry for them. When you’re Miami and have a talent advantage over the likes of Louisville and SMU, just close out one of those games and you’re in great shape. That should not be a heavy lift if you’re truly an elite program.
But the Hurricanes have shown us over and over that they aren’t.
It may be one of the few things in Miami that is exactly as it seems. And it’s why “The U” reigns as America’s most miserable fan base in Week 10.
Conference Champions of Misery
Big Ten: With 5:23 left in the third quarter and a 14-6 lead over Southern Cal, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule struggled over whether to go for fourth-and-1 or try a 52-yard field goal. After some indecision, Rhule opted to kick. It was the wrong call — and very little went right after that for Nebraska in a 21-17 home loss. For Nebraska, the problem here isn’t necessarily the result but rather the timing. With Penn State perhaps in pursuit, Nebraska and Rhule agreed to a two-year contract extension this week. Though it’s mostly inoffensive — Rhule doesn’t get a pay bump unless he makes the CFP — another close loss triggers the narrative about his 0-8 Nebraska record against Top-25 teams while also inflaming the trauma of a fan base that has seen more late-game horrors than anyone for the last decade. Add another to the list. Needing to convert fourth-and-1 to keep their last drive going, Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson just tripped after getting the handoff and stumbled well short of the line to gain.
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Big 12: When the calendar flipped from September to October, Iowa State was 5-0 with a couple conference wins in the bank and a schedule that looked on paper as if it set up for a real playoff push. Now, the Cyclones are 5-4 after their worst moment of the year, coming up empty on four drives in the fourth quarter to lose 24-19 at home to Arizona State. In another context, losing to the Sun Devils wouldn’t be that bad. But when you’re trying to save whatever promise remains of this season, you simply must win at home against an Arizona State team whose star quarterback, Sam Leavitt, is out for the season and whose top receiver, Jordyn Tyson, is also injured. Jeff Sims, who started in Leavitt’s place, had not won a game at quarterback since 2022 (and two schools ago) when he piloted Georgia Tech to an overtime victory over Duke. Iowa State allowed him to run for 228 yards and two touchdowns.
Hugh Freeze may not be long for the job at Auburn. (Michael Chang/Getty Images)
(Michael Chang via Getty Images)
SEC: We’ll see if the God of Buyouts emerges from the clouds again Sunday, this time to drop $15 million on Hugh Freeze. It’s got to be over in Auburn, or pretty darn close, after a 10-3 loss at home to Kentucky. It’s really the same story, over and over again for the Tigers, who play good defense every week, struggle to do anything positive offensively and find a way to lose close games. This was Auburn’s fourth one-score loss of the year, which could argue for more patience with Freeze. At the same time, he’s 6-16 in the SEC and still hasn’t found the right quarterback for the offense he wants to run, so a firing would be well-justified at this point. The bigger issue, though, is that there are already two open jobs in the SEC that are probably more attractive than Auburn. At the very least, the Tigers would enter the market without an obvious home-run candidate, and Auburn searches can get notoriously weird. Whether they fire Freeze or not, there are no great options here.
Group of Five: No team in the country has had a month of heartbreak quite like Air Force, and there were two levels to it this week. First and foremost, losing 20-17 to Army was its fifth straight defeat against a fellow service academy, which is never where you want to be at Air Force. It’s only the sixth time since 1978 the Falcons have gone oh-fer in the Commander-in-Chief’s series. But it was also the third game in five weeks Air Force has lost by exactly a field goal, leaving them at 2-6. This time, down by a touchdown, Air Force fumbled at the 11-yard line with 3:11 to go only to stuff Army on a fourth-and-1 to get the ball back at the 26 with 2:12 left. The problem was, Air Force tied it up too quickly and Army marched down for a 27-yard field goal to win as time expired. Troy Calhoun, who has been the coach at Air Force since 2007, could be headed for his sixth losing season at the academy.
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Headset Misery
Josh Heupel: The complicated history between Heupel and the school he quarterbacked to a national title in 2000 — then pushed him out as offensive coordinator in 2014 — is well documented. Though it took a while for the tension with Oklahoma to subside, you could tell last year that winning in Norman meant a great deal to him in an emotional locker room speech where he thanked his Tennessee players for having “a little extra for me.” So it has to irk him that not only did the Vols lose at home to Oklahoma, 33-27, they essentially got knocked out of the CFP in one fell swoop. Don’t let anyone tell you that a loss is just a loss. As long as Heupel coaches at Tennessee or in the SEC, games against Oklahoma will be under the microscope.
Deion Sanders: Are we heading into the last weeks of Coach Prime? Between serious health issues he’s been dealing with, Colorado slipping out of competitiveness in the Big 12 and the long road to rebuild without any more talented sons or another Travis Hunter in the pipeline, you have to wonder how long Sanders will be motivated to keep doing this. Colorado’s 52-17 loss at home to Arizona comes just a week after losing 53-7 at Utah, and nothing about it looked fun for anyone wearing a Colorado uniform. It’s a long way from the last couple years when celebrities, pro athletes and, most importantly, recruits flocked to Boulder just to stand on the sidelines. If Prime can’t get big-time talent anymore because recruiting is a money game Colorado can’t win, does he even have a path to reboot this thing?
The Colorado Buffaloes’ defense has given up 81 first-half points against their past two opponents. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
(Andrew Wevers via Getty Images)
Jon Sumrall: Anointed by many of our friends and colleagues in the media as the hottest up-and-coming coach in America who is ticketed for a prime job in the SEC next year, Tulane’s 48-26 faceplant at UT-San Antonio should be cause for pause. The reality of what Sumrall has accomplished at Tulane simply does not match the hype. He’s not done a bad job by any means, and perhaps he will be great at the next level. But by most accounts, he’s got the third-most expensive roster in the American Conference and isn’t really exceeding those expectations nor is he doing anything his predecessor, Willie Fritz, failed to do at Tulane. And if we’re talking about coaching, shouldn’t it raise alarm bells that Tulane is 121st nationally in penalty yards per game?
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Dabo Swinney: In the 2015 ACC title game, Clemson punter Andy Teasdall freelanced into an ill-advised fake punt that pretty much handed North Carolina a touchdown to take the lead late in the first half. Swinney was so mad that he went at Teasdall three times, at one point grabbing him by the collar and yelling in his helmet. We haven’t seen a public outburst like that until Saturday, when Swinney completely lost it on his defense for giving up 28 points in the first half of an eventual 46-45 loss to Duke. Charging toward the bench where his starters were sitting, Swinney lit into them for a good 40 seconds, repeatedly punching air and yelling “Busts!” Was he talking about coverage busts or an entire wasted season where 3-5 Clemson might miss a bowl for the first time since 2004.
Bobby Petrino: The thought of Arkansas making him permanent head coach beyond this season’s interim stint was always absurd. And yet, despite his embarrassing personal history and diminishing results in his second stint at Louisville, it was at least a topic in Fayetteville over the last month. But even the grimiest booster who fantasizes about turning the clock back to 2011 would have to admit that Arkansas — now winless in Petrino’s four games — needs to move on. Petrino even showed you why, blowing a two-touchdown lead early in the fourth quarter in a 38-35 loss to a Mississippi State team that hadn’t won an SEC game since Oct. 21, 2023. On the Bulldogs’ winning touchdown, three Arkansas defenders had a clear shot to make a tackle and couldn’t do it. That’s the aspect of Petrinoball you can’t survive in the SEC.
Moments of Misery
Florida seemingly got robbed: It’s been quite a controversial year for the SEC replay booth, including the suspension of veteran official Ken Williamson after multiple screw-ups by his crew in the Auburn-Georgia game three weeks ago that left Auburn athletic director John Cohen incensed coming off the field. While Florida-Georgia wasn’t quite as egregious, Gators fans will be talking for a long time about the “incompletion” to J. Michael Sturdivant with 3:16 to go that would have set them up at the 22-year line and a chance to take the lead. To be fair, it was a close call, with Sturdivant diving to get his arms underneath the throw. Though the ball did bounce, you could argue it caromed off Sturdivant’s forearm rather than the ground. But once again, Georgia was on the lucky end of things as replay upheld the original call. Florida couldn’t convert fourth down on the next play and Georgia wrapped up the win. Wouldn’t it be nice if the SEC followed the ACC’s lead and let viewers listen to the cross-talk between the on-field crew and the replay booth? Would transparency be too much to ask on such an important play?
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Vandy came oh-so-close: A 34-31 final score masks the fact that Texas dominated Vanderbilt most of the day and led by 24 points entering the fourth quarter. However, the Commodores scored touchdowns on three straight possessions and finally figured out how to stop Texas and Arch Manning. With 33 seconds left, Vanderbilt was an onside kick away from potentially one of the great comebacks ever — and the Commodores almost got it. In fact, they executed it exactly how you’d want, the ball bouncing into a Texas players’ chest and igniting a scramble. At least two Vandy players had a chance at a recovery, but it was all happening so close to the sideline that the ball eventually squirted out of bounds.
Georgia Tech’s defense regressed to the mean: The Yellow Jackets had been living dangerously all year, pulling out close game after close game with clutch fourth-quarter defense. But that wasn’t sustainable, and it finally bit them against a hot NC State team and quarterback CJ Bailey, who threw for 340 yards in the Wolfpack’s 48-36 win. Georgia Tech just could not get the stop it needed to mount a comeback, particularly in the second half as NC State got points on its first four possessions. The Yellow Jackets’ playoff hopes will depend on beating Pitt and Georgia at the end of the regular season.
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Fans lost the streaming wars: You don’t know real college football misery until you’re in the living room on a Saturday trying to figure out how to watch games while YouTube and ESPN are in a carriage standoff. If you’re a cable user, carry on. But for anyone who has been on the YouTube TV train, it was a frustrating disaster because navigating ESPN’s standalone app — the one parent company Disney is trying to drive business to with its new unlimited tier of service — was borderline impossible. The Misery Index spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to upgrade from the old ESPN Plus to watch games and eventually signed up for another service. And it was clear from social media that we were far from alone. If ESPN thought being absent from YouTube on a college football Saturday would be a strategic win for them in the negotiations, they may want to think again.