The U is back. Seriously.
No. 10 Miami advanced to the national championship game with a 31-27 win over No. 6 Ole Miss on Thursday, the Hurricanes’ third straight victory as a lower-ranked opponent in the College Football Playoff.
Miami mounted a massive drive to come back and win the game, marching 75 yards in 15 plays to score the go-ahead touchdown. Quarterback Carson Beck ran in the game winner from 3 yards out with 18 seconds left to send his team home for the season finale.
The Hurricanes will face the winner of No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 1 Indiana for the national championship on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
“We never flinched,” Beck said after the game. “In the face of adversity, when we had to respond, we responded.”
Ole Miss had been on a storybook ride since the departure of head coach Lane Kiffin, who left the school Nov. 30 to take the same job at LSU. Since then, the Rebels won two playoff games — a 41-10 blowout win over James Madison and a 39-34 comeback victory against No. 3 Georgia — before falling short against the Hurricanes.
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who spent the first four years of his career at Division II Ferris State, played well, completing 23 of 37 passes for 277 yards and a touchdown. But his heave into the end zone as time expired fell incomplete, ending the Rebels’ hope of continuing their resilient run.
“I’m so proud of this group. They never panicked. They never flinched,” Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding, who was promoted from defensive coordinator after Kiffin’s departure, said postgame. “This group created a legacy for this team and an expectation for this program.”
The Hurricanes controlled the game on the ground, running 51 times for 191 yards. Miami possessed the ball for 41 minutes and 22 seconds, compared with only 18 minutes and 38 seconds for Ole Miss.
Beck — who played at Georgia from 2020 through 2024 but never appeared in a playoff game for the school — completed 23 of 37 passes for 268 yards, two passing touchdowns and one interception, as well as the winning run.
Miami has won three straight playoff games after having been a controversial entrant in the first place. The Hurricanes were on the outside of the postseason picture until the final ranking of the season, and since then they have been on a roll.
Miami upset No. 7 Texas A&M 10-3 on the road in the first round, then knocked off defending champion No. 2 Ohio State 24-14 in the quarterfinal.
Miami’s national title appearance will be its first since the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, when the Hurricanes lost to the Buckeyes in overtime. They have not won a national championship since the 2001 season.
