Always imposing, often impressive, notably consistent, remarkably complementary, surgically delivered, precisely as-ordered \u2026<\/p>\n
Was Miami convincing enough Saturday?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the only adjective that matters.<\/p>\n
Miami beat Pittsburgh 38-7. It won its final four games. It finished 10-2 on the season. It also left the field wondering what everyone was wondering:<\/p>\n
Could they get a little help, please?<\/p>\n
Maybe No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Notre Dame or No. 10 Alabama could lose later Saturday to open an at-large spot in the playoff. Maybe an even unlikelier chain of events that could put them in the ACC championship game. Maybe from the 12-member voting committee that hasn\u2019t been overly helpful to date.<\/p>\n
So, now the fun starts. The politicking. The finger-pointing. This is the worst part of the college postseason, this loud stretch until Tuesday\u2019s final vote by the committee as Miami will pound the fact it beat Notre Dame in the season opener and are ranked below Notre Dame.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best part of football is you get to settle it on the field where Head-to-head is always the No. 1 criteria,\u201d Miami coach Mario Cristobal said after Saturday\u2019s win, just as he should. Just as Miami should pound, too.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s something worse than the politicking right now. It\u2019s wanting to pound the homer table for Miami and being unable to do it. Yes, it beat Notre Dame on the final play. All things being equal, that would be the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
But all things aren\u2019t equal, not really, considering Miami \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026 lost to unranked Louisville and SMU, who has clambered to No. 25.<\/p>\n
\u2026 most likely won\u2019t even make the ACC Championship Game (and could finish in a four-way tie for third place).<\/p>\n
\u2026 had a schedule with a CFP-high eight home games, will have played one top-20 team by the time the final rankings come out (Notre Dame), faced only one of the top seven ACC teams (SMU) and still had two losses.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame won at Pitt two weeks ago, 37-15. How does that compare to Miami\u2019s win Saturday? Does either get style points here?<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t we just talk about how Malachi Toney? There\u2019s someone everyone can agree on.\u00a0 He might have wrapped up the 2026 Heisman Trophy with another electric game on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Toney threw a 9-yard touchdown, caught a 22-yard touchdown and was a running touchdown away from a spectacular hat trick.<\/p>\n
As it was, Toney had 13 catches for 126 yards. That gave him 84 catches, one behind Xavier Restrepo\u2019s school record of 85 in a season.<\/p>\n
Miami did more than flash Toney\u2019s rare talent again Saturday. It went into the trenches and whipped Pitt. It controlled the ball offensively behind Carson Beck completing 23 of 29 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns. It controlled the game defensively right from the start as Pitt was minus-12 yards after its first two drives.<\/p>\n
Miami even showed the kind of on-field discipline that\u2019s been lacking some moments. Twice on a third-quarter drive, Pitt players acted up after crucial stops to merit unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties. Miami took advantage of that with Mark Fletcher\u2019s touchdown run to end a 75-yard drive for a 24-7 lead.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes looked at their best Saturday. Can that matter some? Mario Cristobal will press that point right to Tuesday\u2019s vote. Just as he should. Before the game, ESPN\u2019s Nick Saban went on the offense for Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they get in this playoff, they\u2019re going to be the most dangerous team that anybody has to play because of the talent level,\u2019\u2019 Saban said.<\/p>\n
The former Alabama coach knows a few things about championships. He also knows how to come to the aid of a former assistant like Cristobal.<\/p>\n
Saban\u2019s point underlines the shame of it all. Miami does have great talent. It would be dangerous in the playoff.<\/p>\n
Miami is a team the committee wants in, too. Don\u2019t talk about some conspiracy theory or how everyone has hated Miami for years. That\u2019s nonsense. Why was Miami-Notre Dame a prime-time showcase of the opening weekend? Why did Miami jump an idle Vanderbilt and close-win Utah on successive weeks?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a College Football Playoff team,\u201d Cristobal said. \u201cWe\u2019ve all seen it. We know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Saturday. It\u2019s been so many weeks. It just had two bad weeks that might keep them out.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Always imposing, often impressive, notably consistent, remarkably complementary, surgically delivered, precisely as-ordered \u2026 Was Miami convincing enough Saturday?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[38515,114,123,125,124,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-64787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-dave-hyde-columns","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}