Miami Football: 5 reasons why the Hurricanes will win the title in 2017

1. The Miami brand

It sounds cheesy, but the rich getting richer is an age-old tradition of college football. It’s just naive to believe that the Hurricanes wouldn’t get some measure of special treatment from the College Football Playoff committee if they managed to get within striking distance of being one of the final four teams. Don’t believe it? Let’s look back at the brief history of the playoff.

It’s December 2, 2014. The second to last College Football Playoff rankings have just been released and they read as follows: 1-Alabama (11-1), 2-Oregon (11-1), 3-TCU (10-1) and 4-Florida State (12-0). Just outside is 5-Ohio State (11-1) and 6-Baylor (10-1). All six of the top teams won that week, but Ohio State jumped ahead of both Big 12 teams to grab the final spot in the playoff.

The rational for Ohio State’s inclusion over Baylor and TCU has been rehashed for years. There were legitimate arguments to make in favor of the Buckeyes’ inclusion in 2014. At the simplest level, given three teams with similar resumes, the Selection Committee is going to defer to the name that sells the most tickets. They’re not going to broadcast that or publicly admit to that, but programs with the veneration of Ohio State and Miami have much more going in their favor than smaller programs. That’s just how things work..

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Miami will benefit from being a blue blood program. Even if it’s not a trip to the College Football Playoff, they’ll get a bump up in which ever bowl conversation they end up in. It seems like each passing season adds one more argument against the current champion selection system. Sooner or later a 2-loss team is going to make the playoff. If the committee has to pick between a 2-loss Miami and a 2-loss Oklahoma State they’re going to take the Hurricanes. Every single time. They’ve got the name. Now they just need to prove it on the field.