{"id":408794,"date":"2026-01-15T13:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408794\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:12:14","slug":"miami-bidding-to-be-3rd-largest-underdog-to-win-title-in-bcs-or-college-football-playoff-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408794\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami bidding to be 3rd largest underdog to win title in BCS or College Football Playoff era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Miami <\/a>was selected as the final team in the College Football Playoff, the Hurricanes have faced long odds to win their first national title since 2001. Now they must overcome even more. <\/p>\n

Miami is an 8\u00bd-point underdog to Indiana<\/a>, according to BetMGM. The Hurricanes are trying to become the third-largest underdog to pull an upset in a BCS or College Football Playoff game in the past 27 years.<\/p>\n

Only two underdogs of more than 8\u00bd points \u2013 Ohio State, an 11\u00bd-point underdog vs. Miami in the 2002 title game and Oklahoma<\/a>, a 10\u00bd-point underdog vs. Florida State<\/a> in the 2000 title game \u2013 pulled off bigger upsets since 1998.<\/p>\n

Besides being more than a touchdown underdog, Miami has to overcome recent domination by the title game\u2019s betting favorite. Since 2019, the last six title game favorites have each won and covered the point spread.<\/p>\n

The last underdog to win the national title game was Clemson<\/a> in 2018. The Tigers were 5-point underdogs to Alabama<\/a>, but stunned the Crimson Tide 44-16.<\/p>\n

Since the inaugural BCS title game in 1998, favorites in the title game have won 17 of the 27 national title contests.<\/p>\n

Since 1998, there have been 57 BCS or College Football Playoff games.\u00a0Miami is the 19th team that is an underdog of at least 8\u00bd-points. Favorites won 16 of those previous 18 matchups.<\/p>\n

However, this year Miami (13-2) is a perfect 3-0 straight-up as an underdog. The \u2018Canes were a 3-point underdog in their season opening 27-24 upset of Notre Dame<\/a>. In the playoffs, Miami was a 3-point underdog in its 10-3 first round win at Texas A&M<\/a> and a 7\u00bd-point underdog in its 24-14 quarterfinal win vs. Ohio State<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indiana (15-0) has been favored in 13 of its 15 games this season. The Hoosiers covered the spread in nine of their 13 favorite roles including playoff wins against Alabama (38-3 as a 7\u00bd-point favorite) and Oregon<\/a> (56-22 as a 3-point favorite). Under Curt Cignetti<\/a>, Indiana is 26-0 straight-up as a favorite. <\/p>\n

Largest title game spreads since 1998<\/p>\n

Year Favorite Spread Underdog\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Result<\/p>\n

2022 Georgia -13\u00bd TCU\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Georgia 65-7
2002 Miami -11\u00bd Ohio State\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ohio State 31-24
2013 Florida State -11 Auburn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Florida State 34-31
2000 Florida State -10\u00bd Oklahoma\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Oklahoma 13-2
2012 Alabama -10 Notre Dame\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Alabama 42-14
2020 Alabama -9\u00bd Ohio State\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Alabama 52-24
2025 Indiana -8\u00bd Miami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Title game Monday
2024 Ohio State -8\u00bd Notre Dame\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ohio State 34-23<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Miami was selected as the final team in the College Football Playoff, the Hurricanes have faced long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-408794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}