Twenty-three years ago this week,Miami lost the Fiesta Bowlin double overtime to Ohio State and never recovered.
Ohio State and Miami were like two ships passing in the night — theBuckeyes have since kicked their dynasty to new heightsas the Hurricanes dropped several rungs down the Power Four ladder as one of the Bowl Subdivision's perennial underachievers.
That's not much of an overstatement: Miami might remain reputationally relevant, but a checkered run in the wake of that controversial loss features just one conference championship as a member of the now-defunct Big East, two division championships since joining the ACC and as many losing seasons, four, as years with double-digit wins.
Meanwhile, each of the past three permanent Ohio State coaches have won a national championship, while current coach Ryan Day has won a remarkable 87.8% of his games since replacing Urban Meyer in 2019.
Held against this backdrop, the quarterfinals of theCollege Football Playoffat theCotton Bowlbetween the No. 10 seed Hurricanes and the No. 2Buckeyesprovide an opportunity for revenge along with the chance to reverse the program's decades-long swoon and potentially jumpstart a renaissance.
After years of unrealized expectations, Miami could be poised to break through and capture a landscape-shifting win against the defending national champions.
"Certainly, we've progressed a lot as a program, and these guys have worked really hard to keep earning that progress, and now we find ourselves with an opportunity here in the College Football Playoff," said fourth-year coach Mario Cristobal. "So we're really excited about that opportunity."
Looking at this season, steady progress under Cristobal yielded a team that was simply too talented and too accomplished to leave out of the playoff despite two midseason conference losses.
While a win in the opener against Notre Dame was the eventual tiebreaker inthe final playoff rankings, the Hurricanes established their case with a furious four-game winning streak to end the regular season before pulling out an ugly but effective10-3 road win against No. 7 seed Texas A&Min the opening round.
"All three phases of the game, working together to ultimately pull out a win in what a lot of people say is one of the hardest places to play in the country, and in a playoff atmosphere, elevates that even more," said senior quarterback Carson Beck.
Miami reaches CFP with transfer portal assist
As much as any team in the playoff, Miami has been transformed by the transfer portal. The offseason headliner was Beck, who came in from Georgia and struggled through his own midseason decline but has rebounded with 12 touchdowns against just one interception in his past five games.
Overall, roughly half of the Hurricanes' starting lineup was obtained through the portal, a list that includes wide receivers CJ Daniels and Keelan Marion, linebacker Mohamed Toure and defensive lineman Akheem Mesidor. Among traditional recruits, Miami unearthed a gem in three-star receiver Malachi Toney, who leads the team with 89 receptions for 992 yards and eight touchdowns.
These newcomers have joined a roster that has been built from the inside out, with offensive and defensive lines that rank among the best in the Power Four; as predicted, Cristobal has turned Miami into one of the most physical teams in the country.
Miami is "big and strong and powerful," said Day. "They've done a really good job of recruiting and adapting to the new structure of college football. They do a good job of coaching them, and you can see as the season's gone on, they've gotten better. And we know it's going to be a great challenge for both sides of the football."
Said Beck, "Our trenches on offense and defense have led this team. We go as they go. And any good football team, that's how it's going to be. And we understand the talent that they bring in their trenches as well."
Ohio State is Miami's toughest challenge of season
This program-building philosophy helped Miami pull out a win in College Station despite just three third-down conversions, three missed field goals and a potentially costly turnover in the fourth quarter.
"It was one of those games where we felt, all right, we're holding up good and we're knocking them back," said Cristobal. "I guess what I'm trying to say is the confidence that they bring to us and being able to call and manage the game is off the charts, and certainly they were the difference today."
But the Hurricanes will face by far their toughest test to date — tougher than Notre Dame, Texas A&M or anything they took on in the ACC — against an opponent in Ohio State with no discernable weakness.
Despite losing in the Big Ten championship game to Indiana, Ohio State is considered the favorite in this year's tournament after a nearly flawless regular season that saw just one win, against Texas in the opener, decided by fewer than 18 points. The highlight was the 27-9 win against Michigan to snap the Wolverines' four-game winning streak in the rivalry.
Statistically, these are opponents breathing the same rarefied air among the elite teams in the Power Four. Ohio State ranks 24th nationally in yards per game and 12th in yards per play; Miami ranks 34th and 27th nationally, respectively. On defense, the Buckeyes lead the country in giving up 213.5 yards per game and 3.9 yards per play; the Hurricanes are allowing 281.5 yards per game and 4.5 yards per play.
"Yeah, you know, they're really a fast defense," said Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin. "They're coached really well. They have really good players. And they're a very good defense. So we have a really tough challenge against us. We have to focus on our execution as an offense."
The comparison is even more striking when looking at each team's performance against opponents with a winning record. Offensively, both have averaged 6.4 yards per play in these matchups — seven games for Miami and eight for Ohio State.
Miami win would be 'transformational'
And like the Buckeyes last season, the Hurricanes look to benefit from an opening-round matchup against an SEC opponent before turning to a Big Ten powerhouse. After losing to Michigan to end the regular season and missing the conference championship game, No. 8 seed Ohio State bulldozed Tennessee and then avenged an earlier loss to Oregon in the quarterfinals.
"I think the first thing is not having the mindset of just being here," Cristobal said. "I think that's probably the opposite of our mindset. If we're blessed enough to earn the opportunity to keep playing, our only goal was to keep getting better every single week, and we feel like we did that in our last game."
A win would be transformational. Looking back at the program's rise and fall, Miami's time in the wilderness exceeds the roughly two-decade run as perhaps the sport's defining program, which included national championships in 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2001. But beating the Buckeyes would make a thunderous statement: We're back, and maybe back to stay.
"Yeah, we're very blessed to have this opportunity," said offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa. "At this point, we're coming to take it all. To play against Ohio State at the Cotton Bowl, it's pretty much a blessing to be here."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Miami needs Ohio State win in CFP to return to college football elite
