Posted on 01/01/2026 7:08:58 AM PST by C19fan
More than 20 years after it was on the other end of one of the biggest upsets in BCS history, Miami pulled off the biggest upset of the College Football Playoff era on New Year’s Eve.
The No. 10 Hurricanes beat No. 2 Ohio State 24-14 in the Cotton Bowl to advance to the semifinal round of the playoff. Miami was a 9.5-point underdog at kickoff. Before Wednesday night, the biggest upset in playoff history — in either the four-team playoff or the current 12-team format — was Ohio State’s win over Alabama as a 7.5-point underdog on Jan. 1, 2015.
After Ohio State’s offense showed signs of life in the second half, Miami put the Buckeyes away much like they did Texas A&M — with a power run game. The Hurricanes gave the ball to Mark Fletcher and CharMar Brown five times over the course of six plays before a wide receiver screen to CJ Daniels got Miami inside the Ohio State 10-yard line with less than two minutes to go.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
I would also make the Quarterfinal Games home games for the higher seeded team. Does Miami win in Columbus? I’ve come to despise neutral-site games. Maybe the semis and the championship, but quarterfinals should not be neutral site games.
You notice all those empty seats at the TTU-Oregon game?
I’d just do champions from ACC, Big 10, SEC, and Big XII.
Four teams. Win your conference or you’re obviously not the best team in the country.
“Fans will never stop caring- that’s a foolish statement...”
WSU and OSU fans already have been eliminated. They don’t care.
As the Big 10 and SEC cartel continue to stack the deck nobody else will care.
Yes, OSU was not prepared to play this game. Day had said a couple days before that they had too long a layoff before playing again. But preparing them nevertheless is the coach’s job, right? Credit to Miami, who were sky high, but this wasn’t the same Buckeye team we saw all year.
Conferences are too big now. The best teams in the conference don’t even play each other.
The entire Big 10 Conference is the most over-rated and protected conference in all of sports.
I agree with you, watching this Oregon/Texas Tech game, neither one of them is capable of beating Miami.
One thing that drives me crazy about a lot of modern coaches, is the constant going for it on 4th down, especially when a FG is a good option.
It’s 6-0 at the half and Oregon has dominated the game by sloppy play and going for it on 4th down nearly every time.
USC should offer that Miami defensive coordinator a big chunk of change to relocate to South Hoover Street in LA.
LOL- why? Were Washington State and Oregon State dedicated fans that traveled well and supported their teams???
Everyone hated Oregon State- even the PAC 12 teams were telling the other conferences during alignment “take everybody but Oregon State”
He might do better than coach Riley! Sheee-—it....SC and ucla should save themselves money and go to FCS...those players still are drafted by NFL or other leagues...good coaches get promoted....wgas anyway in the long term?
At the time I am reading this, teams with a bye are now 0 and 6.
And now Alabama is busy proving your point. Texas had 2 classy losses and the weird Florida flip. To think this playoff could have had Texas and ND, instead of OSU and Bama, it is infuriating.
“No, they ALWAYS get the situation balanced out. “
No, thet do NOT always get balanced out.
See my last post.
With sports betting on professional and college sports, I no longer waste my time watching or following them.
I only watched the highlights, but from what the announcers said they let the 2 teams smack each other pretty good, lots of hard-hitting in that game, with Miami (a bit bigger/stronger) able to control the line of scrimmage (on both sides) enough to do get the W. That was a really bad pick 6... what happens when you can apply pressure on a QB used to getting time to throw. Just ask Jared Goff.
Maybe they could just add four more teams to the playoffs and the too four teams don’t get a bye week.
Let conference championship games be played, but not have a bearing on the rankings. The schools want these games because they make a lot of money on them.
Finally, a good game. 27-24 Ole Miss in the 4th quarter.
Pretty much.
One of the Dallas-Pittsburgh Super Bowls back in the 70s was famous because it opened with the Steelers as 3.5 point favorites. The early money was heavily on Dallas, so the casinos dropped the spread to 2.5 points, and the late money was just as heavily on the Steelers.
The Steelers won by 3. So, the house paid everyone who had Dallas plus 3.5 points, and everyone who had Pittsburgh minus 2.5 points.
The sports books are a lot more sophisticated these days, and don't give themselves that sort of exposure.
They’re always going to get bets close enough to balanced to be OK. Always remember there’s a bunch of different bets going on for any particular game. We think about the win loss, but there’s the over-under, first score, last score, individual player performance bets. Even in the rare occasion when win loss bets don’t line up nicely for the house, enough of the other stuff will that the house, as always, wins. Because again, they own all the numbers. They decide what all the conditions for all the bets are, and they decide what the payout is for all the bets. After that it’s just lining up the math so that even if they somehow lose a couple bucks on Bet A, Bets B through ZZ more than make up for it.
And all the prop bets. That’s really where the cash is these days. There’s so much volume in those any minor short comings on a couple lines are easily covered. They especially love those trifecta stats bets, those 10,000 to 1 odds lure so many people into bets that almost never break. Probably only 1 out of a million actually ever win those, which puts the house ahead 990,000.
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