COLLEGE STATION, Texas — University of Miami coach Mario Cristobal was doing a postgame interview Saturday on Kyle Field, where the Hurricanes knocked off Texas A&M in the first round of 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 slobber from Irvin — a former Hurricanes receiver who spent his entire NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys — as the celebration continued for the visitors.
“The U” is back, with the 10th-ranked, 10th-seeded Hurricanes proving wrong any doubters who didn’t think they deserved a spot in the 12-team bracket with a 10-3 victory over No. 7 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 two or three (in the rankings) until their last game, and to get it done in this type of environment, we needed that,” said Cristobal, an offensive lineman on Miami’s national championship teams for the 1989 and 1991 seasons. “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.”
The Hurricanes, who were the only Atlantic Coast Conference team to make the playoff this year after ACC champion Duke and runner-up Virginia were left, face an ever bigger challenge in the next round. They have New Year’s Eve date against third-ranked, second-seeded Ohio State (12-1) — the reigning national champs whose only loss this season was in the Big Ten title game to Indiana (13-0), the CFP’s top seed — in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Cowboys in Arlington, Texas.
The Hurricanes (11-2) got the last at-large bid in the playoff over independent Notre Dame, thanks largely to their season-opening home win over the Fighting Irish, whose other loss was to Texas A&M, one of four Southeastern Conference teams that made the CFP field this year. Miami’s two losses came in a three-game stretch at midseason, both of them against unranked opponents.
The Hurricanes are chasing the program’s sixth national championship and first since the 2001 season. Irvin, who helped Miami to the 1987 season’s title, and fellow Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Andre Johnson, the star of that 2001 squad, joined in on the party Saturday, bringing some of that old-school swag to this current Miami team that has its own brand of confidence.
This will be the third straight appearance in the Cotton Bowl for the Buckeyes, who won the CFP semifinal over Texas there last season before beating Notre Dame for their ninth national title.
Despite their loss in the Big Ten title game earlier this month, the Buckeyes still received a first-round bye as one of the top four seeds, giving them several weeks to reste. They opened as 10-point favorites over the Hurricanes, according to odds from BetMGM sportsbook.
The Buckeyes won a national championship at AT&T Stadium in the 2014 season with a 42-20 win over Oregon when the playoff consisted of only four teams.
This will be only the second appearance for the Hurricanes in the Cotton Bowl and first since New Year’s Day 1991, when they routed Texas 46-3 when it was played in its namesake stadium on the site of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas.
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 for SEC power Georgia in 2021 and 2022 before starting for the Bulldogs the following two seasons.
The sixth-year senior, a Florida native who transferred to Miami for his final college season, is impressed with how the Hurricanes bounced back with a four-game winning streak to end the regular season after falling 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 rushing yards. The junior had a career-long 56-yard run to set up the winning touchdown and averaged 10.1 yards per carry against the Aggies.
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 rushing yards a game, and the four touchdown runs the team has given up this season ranks first.
“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.”