Head coach Mario Cristobal’s Miami Hurricanes have reached the College Football Playoff at the expense of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Both teams were 10-2 and Miami defeated Notre Dame in the regular season. However, in the rankings released before the championship week, Miami was ranked behind Notre Dame, raising doubts about whether they could enter the playoff, given that they couldn’t qualify for the ACC championship game.
In the end, the College Football Playoff committee ranked them higher than Notre Dame, leaving both sides with completely opposite feelings. While the Fighting Irish are mourning, the Canes are celebrating their playoff qualification.
Cristobal shares the current situation of his phone while chiming in on receiving tons od congratulatory messages from several people.
“I mean, you mean like all together or just for today? Just from today. All right, because all together, this is embarrassing to say, I have 9,834,” Cristobal said. “That’s all together. That’s all together. So that’s why nobody in my family likes me. But today, yeah, it’s high. It’s reaching four figures.”
Mario Cristobal said he has over 9,000 unread text messages 😳😂
His phone has been blowing up since the Canes made the CFP 🙌 pic.twitter.com/5L0rmmNye6
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) December 8, 2025
Mario Cristobal’s Miami Might Have Benefited by Duke Winning ACC Championship
The Duke Blue Devils stunned the Virginia Cavaliers in the ACC championship game. If Virginia had won the game, it would have earned a straight qualification into the College Football Playoff. Moreover, since Virginia, even the ACC received a representation, the CFP committee might have thought against Miami and kept Notre Dame ahead of them in the rankings.
However, the reality was Duke winning the ACC championship and given their record was not better than other Group of Five champions like James Madison, the ACC would have missed the College Football Playoff.
The committee supposedly decided to keep Miami ahead of Notre Dame, as with that, they don’t have to fear about leaving an entire Power Four conference out of the playoffs.
Miami is being led by Carson Beck, but they were poor in their loss against SMU. They need to make sure that such performances don’t repeat in the CFP.
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