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 ...
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I’m a UF Gator Fan, but you have to give it to Miami and Cristobal, IMO, they are the odds-on favorite to win it all.
Really, great lines of scrimmage and playing with the old Miami attitude.
Apparently, the refs deleted the DPI rule before that game.
At this point, maybe a team SHOULDN’T hope for a first round bye. Miami looked sharp from the start. TOSU looked sleepy. Losing your OC during the layoff wasn’t good either. Had a bad feeling after the Indiana loss.
Miami did an awesome job. Best of luck to them and CF is better with a strong Miami in the mix.
Buckeyes still have a heck of a future with a redshirt frosh QB coming back and another year with Jeremiah Smith. Not sure if Ryan Day survives to next year according to all of the ranting round these parts. But we’ll see.
Agreed. And IMHO Ohio State played like they listened to too much rat poison. I expected the Buckeyes to play spirited ball to show that they’re not the team that lost to the Hoosiers.
What did it pay?
Miami Vs Georgia for the championship...Beck!
Ohio State wasn’t exposed. Ryan Day was exposed. Again. Ohio State came in flat against Indiana in the Big XX championship game. They came in flat against Miami last night and played a terrible first half. They won the second half pretty decisively but they had dug themselves too deep a hole.
This is why Ryan Day was under so much pressure prior to winning the national championship last year. How long will his grace period last?
Miami made some key plays when they had to. Ohio State didn’t. Instead, they looked flat for a half, and it cost them. And then some play calling was questionable. Ohio State had chances to pull it out, but ya gotta do things like pick up blitzes and not take sacks when you’re in scoring position and coming from behind.
This goes back to coaching. It’s not unusual. Should we talk about James Franklin?
Me too but I am so sick of Ohio state I have no problem with UM moving on.
Notre dame as well, they have no idea how thrilled people like me are they threw their little temper tantrum and refused a bowl bid.
As far as I’m concerned they should be banned from bowl games until that greedy school puts their football team in a conference like the rest of their athletic program.
I’m an OSU fan and I think the game was lost on the pick-6 early in the game. OSU was getting close to scoring with the score 7-0 at that moment. Instead of 7-7 as expected, it’s 14-0. Justin Sayin’s confidence seemed to melt. With few exceptions, long throws were gone as his line collapsed. He held the ball longer than usual and got sacked more in one game than the entire season. Obviously, I wanted OSU to win, but they did not play well enough to win.
As a late UM fan - my daughter is a freshman - last night’s game was a thrill....classic underdog victory. What a way to ring in the new year.
I was telling another FReeper that after walking away from the NFL for good, college football really filled the void. So much better than the woke, arrogant NFL.
This entire year with Miami has just been amazing... what sports should be and once was. Great bunch of humble guys who really like each other, are grateful to be there and work great together as a team. Scrappy and imperfect, but really rose to nearly every occasion.
They also proved last night they earned the spot over Notre Dame.
once again Ryan Day showed up to a gun fight with a water pistol...
They have football between colleges, now? Who’d a thunk it.
I’m a Seminole but go Miami!
It’s only 8:30 in the morning, how do they have a game done already? CFP better not complain about the ratings.
Yep. Also offensive pass interference were no-calls.
I wonder what were the betting lines before the game?
Balanced to make sure the house always wins. Like always. Really, the gambling houses do NOT want fixed games. They’ve got the math on their side, the only time they lose is when somebody monkeys with it.
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