ARLINGTON, Texas — It's been a tense last few days for Miami Hurricanes fans, but a loss by BYU on Saturday and a victory over Notre Dame in the first week of the season helped vault the team into the College Football Playoff.
No. 10 Miami will take on No. 7 Texas A&M (11-1) from the Southeastern Conference at noon (ET) on Saturday, Dec. 20, in College Station. The winner will take on Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.
The Hurricane, the only playoff team from the Atlantic Coast Conference, got an at-large playoff berth after missing out on its conference championship games. Both make their CFP debut when they play in College Station on Dec. 20, the first of three CFP games that day.
Both the Hurricanes and Aggies beat Notre Dame (10-2), which won its last 10 games, but was left out of the 12-team playoff bracket Sunday.
Miami made the playoff after jumping Notre Dame in the final CFP rankings. The Irish lost their season opener 27-24 at Miami on Aug. 31, then fell 41-40 at home to Texas A&M the next week.
"We felt confident because as long as everybody just kind of abided by the criteria that we would be in a good place, and thankfully that was the case," Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said during ESPN's playoff selection show.
The Hurricanes have won four games in a row since an overtime loss Nov. 1 at SMU, a playoff team last season. Miami and the Mustangs were part of a five-way tie for second place in the ACC standings with two league losses each. Duke, with five losses overall, won the tiebreaker, beat Virginia in the league championship game and got left out of the playoff.
"It's validation of everything that we preached, everything that we set out to do," Cristobal said later on a Zoom call. "This is a great step, but again, we're not here just to participate. We want to make sure that the best version of the University of Miami is out there like it was the last four weeks."
Miami and Texas A&M played in 2022 and 2023, with the home team winning each time.
