Miami quiets doubters, will face Buckeyes in Cotton Bowl

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Coach Mario Cristobal was doing his postgame interview on the field after his 10th-seeded Miami Hurricanes knocked off Texas A&M in the College Football Playoff when Michael Irvin came out of nowhere and planted a kiss on his cheek. A beaming Cristobal laughed before wiping off the NFL Hall of Famer's slobber as the celebration continued for the Hurricanes. The U is back, with the Hurricanes proving doubters who didn't think they deserved a playoff spot wrong with a 10-3 victory over No. 7 seed Texas A&M on Saturday to advance to the quarterfinals. "It was important, first, to get in the playoff, then to go and win at a place like this, 100,000-plus plus people, on the road, a team that was arguably top 2 or 3 until their last game, and to get it done in this type of environment, we needed that," Cristobal said. "If you could draw it up how we wanted it, we wanted to go there. We wanted to come here and do it against a great football team." Next, the Hurricanes face a bigger challenge with a New Year's Eve date against No. 2 Ohio State, the defending national champs, in the Cotton Bowl. The Hurricanes (11-2) got the last at-large bid in the playoff over Notre Dame thanks largely to their win over the Fighting Irish in the opener, causing some debate about whether they belonged. Now they get a chance to compete for a sixth national championship and first since 2001. Irvin, who helped the 'Canes to a title in 1987, and fellow Hall of Fame receiver Andre Johnson, the star of that 2001 squad, joined in on the party at Kyle Field on Saturday, bringing some of that old school swag to this current Miami team that has its own brand of confidence. It's a third straight appearance in the Cotton Bowl for the Buckeyes (12-1), who won the CFP semifinal over Texas there last season before beating Notre Dame for their ninth national title Ohio State was the Big Ten runner-up after No. 1 Indiana handed the team its first loss of the season 13-10 in the conference championship game. But the Buckeyes still received a first-round bye, giving them several weeks to rest before opening their title defense. They opened as 10-point favorites over the Hurricanes, according to BetMGM's College Football Odds. Though the Hurricanes haven't contended for a title in more than two decades, quarterback Carson Beck was on two national championship teams as a backup at Georgia in 2021 and 2022. The sixth-year senior, in his first year with the team, is impressed with how the Hurricanes bounced back with a four-game winning streak to end the regular season after a tough stretch where they lost two of three games to fall to 6-2. "The way that we responded from that just tells the whole entire story of who this team is and what this team wants," Beck said. "We responded those last four games in honestly astounding fashion and proved that we should be in the playoffs, that we should have this opportunity. "Now that we have had this opportunity, we come in on the road in one of the toughest places to play, some would argue the toughest place to play in a road playoff and come out with a victory." Miami beat the Aggies thanks to a nasty defense that forced three turnovers and had seven sacks and with an offense led by Mark Fletcher Jr.'s career-high 172 yards rushing. The junior had a career-long 56-yard run to set up the game-winning touchdown and averaged 10.1 yards per carry against the Aggies. "He's just the heart and soul of our football team," Cristobal said. "Everything he does is dedicated to his teammates getting better, to the team winning and… he just took over." Against the Buckeyes, he'll face a run defense that is among the best in the country. Ohio State ranks sixth nationally by allowing just 84.5 yards rushing a game and the four rushing touchdowns the team has given up this season ranks first. The Cotton Bowl is played at AT&T Stadium, which is home to the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. The Buckeyes won a national championship there in the 2014 season with a 42-20 win over Oregon when the playoffs consisted of only four teams. This will be only the second appearance for the Hurricanes in the bowl and first since New Year's Day 1991, when they routed Texas 46-3 when it was played in the Cotton Bowl on the site of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas.