CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami coach Mario Cristobal stated his College Football Playoff case Tuesday morning, imploring the selection committee to “go to the facts” when deciding if the Hurricanes deserve an at-large berth into the 12-team field.
The 14th-ranked Hurricanes (10-2, 6-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) figure to be considered alongside several at-large hopefuls, including a trio of Southeastern Conference teams — Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi — that all finished the regular season with 9-3 marks.
“We won 10 games this year and not many teams have,” Cristobal said in his weekly appearance on WQAM, the Hurricanes’ flagship station. “And in our losses, those losses came down to one possession. That’s a very different resume than the 9-3 teams.”
The committee releases its next-to-last rankings Tuesday night, and those numbers will likely give a strong hint about which teams will be in the field when the final version of the bracket comes out on Sunday.
This weekend’s conference championship games — Clemson vs. SMU in the ACC, UNLV vs. Boise State in the Mountain West, Iowa State vs. Arizona State in the Big 12, Georgia vs. Texas in the SEC and Penn State vs. Oregon in the Big Ten — will decide much of who goes where, but teams like Miami don’t have another game to improve its resume.
“The awards should go to the teams that are actually winning the games, not the ones that are politicking themselves out of losses,” Cristobal said.
Part of Miami’s argument for a CFP berth is that the Hurricanes won easily at Florida to open the season, that they lead the nation in yards and points per game, that Heisman Trophy hopeful quarterback Cam Ward led the nation with 36 touchdown passes, that they went unbeaten at home and their two losses — at Georgia Tech and at Syracuse — were by a combined nine points.
The arguments against Miami include that the Hurricanes didn’t face any teams that were ranked in that particular week and that the defense allowed at least 31 points five times in the final eight games.
Yet even with the defensive struggles, the Hurricanes still finished the regular season as one of seven teams nationally ranked in the top 25 in both yards per game and yards allowed per game — along with Indiana, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee and Texas.
“Go to the facts,” Cristobal said. “Award football teams for winning football games.”
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