Why Miami should make the College Football Playoff: Notre Dame win, common opponents boost Hurricanes' case

Mario Cristobal and No. 12 Miami have made their case for an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff this season. Whether the selection committee reverses course and finally bumps the ACC's highest-ranked team ahead of Notre Dame as the last team in -- considering the head-to-head result -- remains to be seen.

If you're a Miami fan, you're rooting hard for fourth-ranked Texas Tech to beat No. 11 BYU in the Big 12 Championship Game, handing the Cougars their second loss of the campaign. The Red Raiders already torched Kalani Sitake's team once this season and are nearly a two-touchdown favorite this weekend.

Since BYU (11-1) is ahead of Miami (10-2) in the committee's penultimate top 25, the Cougars are playing for a spot in the CFP bracket and control their own destiny. A conference title would end the conversation for both Miami and Notre Dame given the auto-bid rule and the fact Texas Tech will not be taken out of bracket for a second loss.

Is it fair that BYU has been ahead of Miami the last few week? The Hurricanes have four wins over teams going to a bowl game while the Cougars have six, which is part of the reason the committee favors BYU at the moment.

Miami ended the season on a four-game winning streak with a margin of victory at 27.5 points per game. The Cougars, after losing to Texas Tech on Nov. 1, have won three straight at a 21 points per game clip. And in overall net efficiency, which is based on point contributions of each offense, defense or special teams unit to a team's scoring margin on a per-play basis, values are adjusted for strength of schedule.

Miami leads BYU in that metric, but both teams are behind Notre Dame.

As you can see, the numbers are extremely tight when it comes to Miami's case against Notre Dame (10-2) and BYU on paper. That said, game control is this committee's preferred metric as we've seen the last four weeks and ranked wins are supposed to mean something.

In Miami's case, that ranked win happened to come against one of the two teams the Hurricanes are in this tightened bubble with heading into the final weekend.

As as it relates to Notre Dame specifically, common opponents must be mentioned in the committee's final deliberations. Miami beat NC State (41-7), Syracuse (38-10), Stanford (42-7) and Pittsburgh (38-7), convincingly. The Hurricanes beat three of the four common opponents shared with Notre Dame by a wider margin.

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek left the door open for the Hurricanes to jump Notre Dame should BYU lose to Texas Tech this weekend on Tuesday night. We've already seen this happen this season, by the way. After Texas toppled Texas A&M last Friday, the committee pushed the Longhorns (9-3) over Vanderbilt (10-2) this week due to a previous head-to-head result.

While both Miami and Notre Dame will be idle on Saturday, fluctuation could occur. A loss for BYU places Miami right behind Notre Dame for the first time during this playoff discussion and might be the final data point needed for the boost.

"The management committee during the offseason provided some clarification to some comments that were made last year, and indeed idle teams can move following the results of the championship games," Yurachek said. "And how they impact the teams that are around those that play in the championship game and data such as strength of schedule, teams that may be idle. So yes, teams that are idle can move up or down."

We'll see if that's a made-for-TV comment to justify tuning into Sunday's final rankings reveal or if the committee plans to finally boost Miami's 27-24 win over Notre Dame in the opener -- during which the Hurricanes held a 21-7 lead in the second half -- that should've been done weeks ago.