For general fans without a vested rooting interest, or really anyone who just relishes a classic sports narrative of perseverance through adversity, the first College Football Playoff semifinal Thursday night was set up as a win-win from the start.
A spot in the national championship game awaited either Ole Miss, spurned by its head coach bolting for one of its top rivals before the start of the playoffs, or Miami, with plenty of lingering doubters still questioning whether its head coach or quarterback could win at the highest level.
And it took a frenetic final fourth quarter with four lead changes to decide which of those two it would be.
In the end, it was sixth-year senior quarterback Carson Beck sauntering into the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown scramble with 18 seconds left, sending Miami and coach Mario Cristobal to a 31-27 Fiesta Bowl win in Arizona and onto the national title game vs. either Indiana or Oregon on Jan. 19.
How fitting a finish.
After five years at Georgia with the parting perception, fairly or not, that his time there fell short of lofty expectations, Beck sought to author a better final chapter to his college football story by moving onto Miami. There are still some pages left to fill in now, but it’s already assured of being a success story for Beck at this point, with that game-winning touchdown the enduring image for now.
It’s also a breakthrough for Cristobal, long regarded as a very good college football coach but now moving up into a different tier of status in the sport.
And for the Miami football program overall, it’s a moment that has been long-awaited, with the Hurricanes’ last national championship coming in 2001.
Since the program’s run of four straight AP top-five finishes ended in 2003, Miami had just one season with double-digit wins over the next 20 years while cycling through four head coaches before hiring Cristobal four years ago.
It’s been a slow build for the former Oregon head coach after 5-7 and 7-6 seasons to start his tenure, but the Miami native and former Hurricanes offensive tackle being the one to get “The U” back to this point is also befitting of fiction — especially with that upcoming national title game being played on their home field at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
There’s still a big difference between finishing the job with a national title or not, but either way, this doesn’t feel like a fluke for the Hurricanes. Miami indeed is back.
And we have a lot of thoughts about that and how it unfolded Thursday night.
1. Mario’s Moment
To this point of Cristobal’s career, it was indisputable that he was a proven program builder, an excellent recruiter and an elite developer of physical offensive/defensive line play.
What was still in question was whether he could ever truly get over the hump and win big.
It was a fair criticism too.
In his second season at Oregon in 2019, equipped with future NFL star Justin Herbert at quarterback, his Ducks got off to a 9-1 start and looked in control of their path to the then-four-team playoff — before a stinging out-of-nowhere 31-28 loss to a 5-5 Arizona State team ended any national title hopes. Oregon would finish sixth in the final CFP rankings.
Those kind of late-season letdowns started to mount for Cristobal and became hard to ignore as a trend.
In 2021, his Ducks again started 9-1 and climbed to No. 3 in the rankings before losing two of the next three weeks to Utah — 38-7 in the regular season and 38-10 in the Pac-12 championship game — again dashing hopes of chasing a national title.
When he left for Miami after that season, there was a prevailing sentiment among many Oregon fans that it was a good time for a fresh start anyway.
Back at his alma mater, Cristobal again showed all the traits that make him one of the better coaches in college football. He recruited well to rebuild the talent level in the program, created an identity and advantage on both sides of the line of scrimmage and had the Hurricanes off to a 9-0 start and No. 4 in the rankings last season when it happened again.
A 28-23 loss to an unranked 5-4 Georgia Tech team. Then two games later, a 42-38 loss to unranked Syracuse in the regular-season finale. Miami tumbled from No. 6 in the CFP rankings to No. 13 with that second loss (while Cristobal’s former school was thriving, as the Ducks went into the postseason at 13-0 with the No. 1 seed).
When Miami started 5-0 this year and climbed to No. 2 in the AP poll only to lose two of the next three games to unranked Louisville and SMU, it felt like more of the same all over again.
But now Cristobal has won three straight playoff games, including knocking off the reigning national champs from Ohio State in the quarterfinals, and whatever stigma existed should be mostly gone at this point.
Whether he’ll win a national championship, this year or ever, remains to be proven and is another tier to reach, but that goes for 98 percent of the coaches in college football. Cristobal has now cemented his spot as one of the game’s best regardless.
2. Clutch Carson Beck
For Beck to score the game-winning touchdown in the final minute to send Miami to the national championship game was a storybook moment for the narrative arc of his college football career.
As noted, fair or not, many would categorize Beck’s five years at Georgia as underwhelming.
After sitting behind Stetson Bennett IV for two seasons, Beck was the Bulldogs’ starter in 2023-24, stepping into almost-impossible expectations as Georgia pursued a third straight national title while riding a record SEC winning streak that would stretch to 29 games. But a 27-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC championship game kept the Bulldogs out of the then-four-team CFP.
Beck had a fine season nonetheless, completing 72.4% of his passes for 3,941 yards, 24 TDs and 6 INTs (plus 4 rushing TDs).
In 2024, though, his numbers dipped — 64.7% passing for 3,485 yards, 28 TDs and 12 INTs with 1 rushing TD — as the Bulldogs went 10-2 in the regular season and beat Texas for the SEC championship. But Beck was injured on the final play of the first half in that game and wouldn’t play for Georgia again.
Gunner Stockton took over at QB and started the Bulldogs’ playoff loss to Notre Dame, while Beck had elbow surgery and declared for the NFL draft.
One way or the other, it seemed he was ready to move on from Georgia (and perhaps the feeling was mutual with Stockton looking ready to take the job full-time). Beck later reversed course on his NFL plans and took a lucrative NIL deal to transfer to Miami.
This season was framed as a redemption campaign of sorts for the QB, and he was an early-season Heisman Trophy favorite as Miami started 5-0 and climbed to No. 2 in the rankings.
Then, Beck tossed 4 interceptions in that loss to unranked Louisville and 2 more a couple weeks later in the overtime loss to unranked SMU.
Not only was he out of the Heisman race at that point, but he was at peril of finishing his collegiate career on a downward trajectory since that strong 2023 season. At that point, he had 9 interceptions in eight games.
Any compelling story needs its point of conflict and adversity, though.
From there, Beck led Miami to four straight lopsided wins to close the schedule, averaging 281.3 passing yards per game with 11 TDs and just 1 INT in one of the best stretches of his career.
Given the chance to then script a more satisfying ending to his college football story when the Hurricanes slid into the final at-large playoff spot, Beck was a complementary part of the defense-driven wins over Texas A&M and Ohio State with just 241 combined passing yards and 2 TDs in those games, but he had his moment Thursday night in the semifinals.
The veteran QB completed 23 of 37 passes for 268 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT and, of course, the game-winning rushing TD.
It remains to be seen how NFL teams will evaluate Beck ahead of the draft or how this all finishes in the national title game, but at this point Beck’s Miami move — and his college football career as a whole — can only be viewed as a major success.
3. Malachi Toney Appreciation
It’s a given just about every Miami game that the broadcast team will at some point get giddy reminding the television audience that star freshman receiver Malachi Toney should still be a senior in high school and re-classified up a year to get a jump start on college football.
And, you know what, with good reason!
It’s incredible enough what Toney has done as a true freshman even without that context, but yeah, it makes it all the more absurd that he’s already truly one of the best players in all of college football.
Toney had 5 catches for 81 yards and a touchdown (plus 2 rushes for 11 yards) Thursday night, pushing his freshman totals to 99 receptions for 1,089 yards and 9 TDs with 113 rushing yards and a score, 2 passing TDs and 273 punt return yards.
Toney’s 36-yard touchdown Thursday came in that back-and-forth final quarter and gave Miami a 24-19 lead at the time, and it was a pure testament to his elite speed and elusiveness (and, yes, a really well-designed play) as he weaved through what seemed like the entire Rebels defense on his way to the end zone.
That wasn’t his most jaw-dropping athletic showcase of the night, though.
It didn’t count ultimately as his foot was ruled out of bounds on review, but Toney was a whisker away from coming down with one of the most amazing catches of the entire college football season late in that fourth quarter.
He’s a special, special talent who might well find his way into the Heisman Trophy conversation over the next two seasons before inevitably being a high first-round NFL draft pick.
4. Ole Miss’ What-Ifs
We’re certainly not going to criticize the job Ole Miss coach Pete Golding did holding this team together in the wake of Lane Kiffin’s departure to LSU.
He led the Rebels to their first two CFP wins, outdueled Kirby Smart and Georgia, and for a moment in the fourth quarter Thursday night sure looked to be on his way to playing for a national title. Phenomenal job done.
The only nitpick to mention here is that there seemed to be no adjustment or heightened awareness to the peril of crashing the pocket aggressively and leaving Beck escape lanes to run through.
It probably wasn’t paramount in game-planning as Beck is not traditionally much of a runner, but he is athletic enough to use his legs when needed and had already done so on a couple key plays late in the game.
Beck scrambled for 8 yards on third-and-5 midway through the third quarter and later on that same promising drive scrambled for 11 yards on third-and-13 to setup a successful fourth-down conversion, though that drive ultimately ended in an interception.
On that fateful second-and-goal from the Ole Miss 3 with 18 seconds left and the Rebels protecting a 3-point lead, it just stood to reason the defense would have been more aware of Beck’s potential to take off for the end zone, as he did.
Meanwhile, there are two what-ifs that have to be on the minds of the Rebels and their fans after coming so close Thursday night.
First, Ole Miss arguably has the best kicker in college football in Lucas Carneiro, who made 31 of 35 field goals this season, all 55 extra-point attempts and led college kickers in scoring. He also was sublime in the quarterfinals win over Georgia, going 3-for-3 on field goals from 55, 56 and 47 yards with the game-winner coming in the waning seconds.
So this is absolutely no knock on Carneiro — it’s just a what-if …
He was exceptional again Thursday night, making 4 of 5 field goals while hitting from 42, 58 (the second-longest in CFP history), 54 and 21 yards. But Carneiro was oh so close to being 5 of 5, having a 51-yarder go off the left upright early in the third quarter (his subsequent 54-yarder also clanked the upright but bounced through).
Had that kick been a couple inches to the right, and assuming everything else played out the same (which it may not have), Ole Miss would have hypothetically still been within a field goal of the lead when it got the ball back with 18 seconds left. The Rebels did move 40 yards on two passes on that final drive to get to the Miami 48 with 6 seconds left. In this scenario we’ve created, they would have had time for one quick pass to the sideline to make it a little closer shot for the best kicker in college football to potentially steal the game back in the end. What a story that would have been.
The other what-if for Ole Miss is what might have been if running back Kewan Lacy didn’t tweak his hamstring on his 73-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter?
He returned to the game in the second half but had just 26 rushing yards the rest of the way.
5. CFP Ramifications
This is where we have to dredge up the drama and controversy that defined the College Football Playoff selection process, with a two-loss Miami team earning the final at-large berth in the 12-team field and the No. 10 seed (ahead of only the two Group of Five qualifiers, Tulane and James Madison) while two-loss Notre Dame was snubbed.
Literally, the only reason the Hurricanes are even in the playoffs is because kicker Carter Davis knocked a 47-yard field goal narrowly inside the right upright with 1:04 remaining for the decisive points in a 27-24 win at home over the Fighting Irish way back on Aug. 31.
Not to dive back into the weeds on it all, but Notre Dame, which won its final 10 regular-season games in pretty commanding fashion, had been slotted ahead of Miami in every official CFP ranking reveal until the very final one. Only at that point did the selection committee decide because the two teams were now neck-and-neck in the rankings, that head-to-head result couldn’t be ignored.
And now the Hurricanes are playing for the national title after playoff wins over Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss.
Miami, with its elite defense, reliable rushing attack, freshman phenom receiver and veteran quarterback, could absolutely win the national championship — and yet it came so close to not even being in the playoff field.
Of course, Notre Dame fans are still sitting at home thinking they could be in the same spot.
Because of that, expect the powers that be to make changes that will ensure that situation does not happen again.
ESPN, which televises all the CFP games, gave the CFP management committee an extension to Jan. 23 to inform the network of any changes to the size of the playoff field for 2026. The CFP could expand to 16 teams (which would have ensured Notre Dame and Texas spots this year and likely Vanderbilt and BYU) for next year, or 24 in the future (but requiring more than a year’s notice in that case).
Or, the committee could decide to keep the 12-team bracket but amend the parameters for automatic qualifiers. As it stands, the top five conference champions get automatic entry into the playoff. The intent was to advance the four Power Four champs and give the top Group of Five team a shot in the playoffs, but when five-loss Duke won the ACC that meant two G5 teams made the field (as both were ranked).
For many, that exasperated the absurdity of Notre Dame, which reached the national title game last year, sitting home while Tulane lost by 31 points to Ole Miss in the first round and James Madison trailed Oregon by 31 in the second quarter before the Ducks finished off a 51-34 win.
Especially when now considering it just as easily could have been Miami left out of the party.
(There is a lot to be said about the importance of giving the G5 a path to the playoff and the impact those opportunities had on each school, and we’ll leave that whole debate for another day).
However it shakes out, expect a correction to come to the CFP format to make sure no team truly capable of winning it all gets denied the chance to even take its shot.
