It’s official: The Miami Hurricanes are in the College Football Playoff for the first time.
After being on the outside looking in for each of the first five rankings, Miami was the No. 10 team in the selection committee’s final ranking on Sunday afternoon to secure an at-large bid into the field. The five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams create the 12-team bracket.
Miami will travel to play No. 7 Texas A&M in the first round of the four-round playoff. The game will kick off at noon Dec. 20 from Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.
Should Miami make its way through the opening round, quarterfinals and semifinals, the Hurricanes would reach the national championship game on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium, with a chance to win their first national title since 2001 on their home field.
“We are excited to be making our first appearance in the College Football Playoff,” Hurricanes athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a statement. “Congratulations to Mario Cristobal, our coaching staff and our student-athletes on a terrific regular season that was justly rewarded by the CFP Committee. We look forward to facing Texas A&M in the opening round and I know Miami fans will make their presence felt in College Station.”
The Hurricanes (10-2, 6-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) made the field after putting together a strong finish to the regular season, getting some help along the way during conference championship weekend — and the selection committee finally factoring in one key portion of Miami’s resume to its benefit.
Namely: The committee, for the first time in its six rankings, took into account Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame, with the Hurricanes beating the Fighting Irish 27-24 on Aug. 31 to begin the season, as a deciding factor.
And it proved necessary, as the Hurricanes were the last team in the field and the Fighting Irish were the first team out.
“You look at those two teams on paper, and they’re almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against their common opponents,” CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said Sunday in comparing Miami and Notre Dame. “But the one metric we had to fall back on again was the head-to-head. I charged the committee members to go back and watch that game again, the Miami-Notre Dame game, because it was so far back, and we got some interesting debate from our coaches on what that game looked like as we watched it. With that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame into that 10 spot.”
Miami entered the day feeling confident about its chances but also knew there was a chance it could be left out.
That was by the Hurricanes’ own doing.
After a 5-0 start to the season, Miami lost twice in a three-game stretch — falling to Louisville 24-21 at home on Oct. 17 and to SMU 26-20 in overtime on the road on Nov. 1 — just before the committee began its weekly rankings. The Hurricanes had to respond in a strong way in order to climb itself back into contention.
UM’s response: Walloping the likes of Syracuse, NC State, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh (the last of whom was ranked at the time of the matchup) by a combined score of 151-41. The Hurricanes showed the committee that their offense could play at a consistently high level (a knock given by the committee during its first ranking) to complement a defense that is among the top 10 nationally in most metrics.
That was enough to get Miami back into the conversation for the final two at-large spots into the field, a debate that pitted UM against Notre Dame (again, a team the Hurricanes beat head-to-head on Aug. 31), Alabama (a team with a strong resume but also lost to a Florida State team that Miami beat) and BYU.
UM entered the final week at the bottom of that foursome in the committee’s eyes, ranked No. 12 and behind No. 9 Alabama, No. 10 Notre Dame and No. 11 BYU.
However, Alabama and BYU were each throttled in their conference championship games on Saturday — the Crimson Tide falling 28-7 to Georgia, BYU losing 34-7 to Texas Tech.
The committee’s decision: Alabama and Miami in, Notre Dame and BYU out.
This story was originally published December 7, 2025 at 12:33 PM.
Jordan McPherson
Miami Herald
Jordan McPherson covers the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Panthers for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and covered the Gators athletic program for five years before joining the Herald staff in December 2017.
