Mario Cristobal, Steve Sarkisian trade jabs in College Football Playoff debate

When it comes to the College Football Playoff bubble, Miami and Texas are firmly on the outside looking in entering Tuesday night’s penultimate rankings from the selection committee and coaches for each are doing everything they can to politic for their respective teams.

Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian didn’t appreciate Miami running up the score on Pittsburgh over the weekend after Carson Beck found CJ Daniels on a 33-yard touchdown pass with 41 seconds left during the Hurricanes’ 38-7 win.

He hurled a not-so-subtle jab in Miami’s direction on Monday, this coming a few days after pounding the table for three-loss Texas as a playoff team following its season-ending win over previously-unbeaten Texas A&M.

“There’s teams that are ranked in front of us that haven’t played any top-10 ranked teams,” Sarkisian said on SEC Network. “My point to everybody is, is this about what your record is at the end? Or is this about beating quality teams and showing how good of a team you really are by beating quality teams on the field. Or is it don’t play good teams, put up a bunch of yards, put up a bunch of points and make it look good. Throw fade route touchdowns with 38 seconds to go when you’re ahead 31-7 so that the score looks better. 

“Is the committee watching the games or are they looking at a stat sheet at the end of the game to say, ‘Oh, well they won by this many points, they must’ve played really good.'”

Cristobal responded to Sarkisian’s dig a few hours later.

“I get it, everybody’s trying to posture themselves for their programs and whatnot, the great part about stuff like that when coaches try to speak about themselves like that, they also gotta take a look at the common opponent between us and that particular coach,” Cristobal said on Canes In Sight. “Seeing that we had the opportunity to really dominate that opponent while that opponent dominated them.”

Margin of victory isn’t supposed to be incentivized by the committee, but it undoubtedly is when you consider the game control metric and what that entails. Ironically, this was the second straight week the Hurricanes scored a meaningless touchdown in the final minute of the game after Beck hit Malachi Toney on a 20-yard fade on fourth down at Virginia Tech during a 34-17 victory.

Miami vs. Texas tale of the tape

Miami’s consecutive statements could leave a lasting impression on the committee, who slotted the Hurricanes at No. 12 last week — two spots away from the final at-large bid. Also for the first time this season, the committee ranked Miami in the same tier — or pod — as No. 9 Notre Dame, which is significant given the Hurricanes’ last two victories over common opponents that the Fighting Irish also dominated. 

Notre Dame is still ahead of Miami by a significant margin, however, despite its head-to-head loss to the Hurricanes in the opener.

“This is a College Football Playoff team,” Cristobal said after Miami’s win at Pitt. “We’ve all seen it. We know it. Proud of the way our guys came out, dominated from start to finish. We left a lot of points on the board as well. We’re really starting to click. Complete dominance. We’ve got great players in all phases, and we’re playing great football in all phases. The best part about football is you get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the No. 1 criterion.”

Per CBS Sports’ latest playoff projection, the following teams are playoff locks entering conference championship weekend: Ohio State, Indiana, Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon and Ole Miss. Two other seeds are going to the ACC and Group of Five winners, which leaves four at-large spots that are up for debate entering Tuesday night.

Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Alabama were ranked in the Nos. 8, 9 and 10 spots last week, while BYU and Miami were essentially placeholders thereafter. Those seeds will go to the final two conference champions, leaving the No. 10 seed to receive the final, coveted at-large selection.

Texas was at No. 16 last week and there doesn’t appear to be a path for the Longhorns’ to the final at-large position.

“I think we’re absolutely a playoff team,” Sarkisian said after the Longhorns’ 27-17 win over the Aggies. “We’re the first team since the 2019 national champion LSU team to beat three top-10 ranked teams in the same season during the regular season. Let’s just chew on that for a second.”

Each of these teams needed losses by others currently projected to make the playoff bracket to lose over the weekend, but it didn’t happen. Alabama took out Auburn, Notre Dame annihilated Stanford, BYU took care of business against UCF and Oklahoma nipped LSU.

If Texas Tech throttles BYU in the Big 12 Championship and Georgia beats Alabama by a couple of touchdowns, the debate heats up again in Miami’s favor.