Florida governor Ron DeSantis weighs in on Notre Dame vs. Miami playoff argument on social media
The state’s top official went to bat for Miami ahead of Tuesday’s penultimate College Football Playoff rankings.
The Miami Hurricanes finished up their regular season on Saturday emphatically, thrashing the Pittsburgh Panthers 38-7 on the road to finish up their regular season at 10-2.
Will they make it into the College Football Playoff? It doesn’t seem like it, and that’s in no small part thanks to the love the selection committee has shown to Notre Dame from week to week. Despite no appreciable wins, the Irish have been rewarded for their close losses to top teams.
The problem: one of those was to Miami, the team it’s in the same comparative pool with. And the committee still hasn’t seemed to care, putting Notre Dame ninth and Miami twelfth in the most recent rankings despite Miami beating the Irish 27-24 back in Week 1. Many have argued the unfairness of the committee ignoring the most common and crucial tiebreaker between two comparable teams – a head-to-head result – but that’s fallen on deaf ears with committee chairman Hunter Yurachek and the rest of the committee.
You can now add Florida governor Ron DeSantis of those crying foul. DeSantis took to Twitter(X) on Sunday, and he pointed out how putting Notre Dame in and leaving Miami out would minimize the importance of the regular season results.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis argues for Miami over Notre Dame based on their head-to-head win
“If ND gets in and Miami doesn’t, it will further erode the importance of the regular season,” DeSantis wrote from his personal account. “I’m OK with both getting in, but identical records should mean the head-to-head is the tiebreaker if you have to choose between them.”
The two teams are now almost identical in both strength of schedule (Miami 44, Notre Dame 42) and strength of record (Miami 14, Notre Dame), two of the biggest and most crucial metrics. Miami’s best win is against Notre Dame, and Notre Dame’s best win is over 9-3 USC. The two teams have four common opponents. Miami beat three of the four by more points than Notre Dame did (NC State, Pittsburgh, Stanford). If those aren’t two comparable resumes, I don’t know what is.
We’ll find out on Tuesday, when the next to last rankings are revealed ahead of conference championship games on Saturday. But any voices arguing for Miami – whether a governor or a fan – are likely not going to register with the committee at this point.