Miami’s football team climbed into the College Football Playoff ended exactly where its whole argument began: with Notre Dame. The committee finally nudged the Hurricanes ahead of the Irish for the final at-large berth, leaning hard on Miami’s 27-24 win in Week 1 as the decisive tiebreaker between two 10-2 teams. Inside the program, Mario Cristobal had insisted all along they were “really confident” they’d get in if the committee stayed loyal to its own criteria, and Selection Sunday proved him right.

Once the bracket was set, Cristobal went back to a lesson from his Alabama days under Nick Saban . He told ESPN he kept thinking about one Saban line in particular:

“If you want to make everybody happy, don't coach and get involved in football. Go sell ice cream, because the ice cream

See Full Page