Miami's Mario Cristobal Focused on 'The Number One Criteria' to reach the CFP
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No. 12 Miami is looking at a battle among Notre Dame, Oklahoma, and Alabama for one of the two remaining spots in the College Football Playoff.
The Hurricanes over the past four weeks have looked better than most of those teams, but head coach Mario Cristobal knows that his Canes have the upper hand.
They have done exactly what the committee has asked of them, and now, with a 10-2 record, he knows that one this should be counted as for more than all the other analytics in the country.
"Complete dominance," Cristobal added. "A team that just we've got great players in all phases, and we're playing great football in all phases. And you know what the best part about football? You get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the number one criteria for anything regarding athletics and football."
Cristobal has not been the campaigning type because he wanted to handle what the team could. Now, after finishing the season on a four-game win streak, the Hurricanes are one of the best-looking groups in the country. Cristobal is starting his campaign now as one of the best 12 teams in the country.
"Well, I mean, I would say a lot," Crisotbal said. " I mean, at the end of the day, it's not only do we pass the eye test, we pass the field test, right? Especially as it relates to playing this brand of football down the stretch and in head-to-head competition versus others that are being judged in the same little pool that we are as well.
"Plus, we're getting healthy. No one ever talked about, you know, the value of that in the middle of the season when we got banged up, with six, seven starters going down, and now we're almost all the way back.
"Our quarterback is playing, hard to compare anybody else in the country playing the kind the caliber of football that he's playing, our defensive and offensive lines have been absolutely dominant, and they showed it from game one all the way to the game now, forcing opponents to have their worst graded performances against our fronts. So I think all that stuff, just it speaks loudly. And again, it's not only eye test, it's the field test."
The Hurricanes will have to wait, as they are not facing anyone on Championship weekend, finishing third in the conference one again, thanks to ACC tiebreaker rules.
Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University and is the site lead for the Miami Hurricanes on SI. He can be reached at Twitter @Justice_News5.
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.