MIAMI — Damn you, Appalachian State!
That is what Miami Hurricanes football fans should be thinking with a scowl this week as UM girds for its most telling test of this season on Saturday night at Texas A&M.
Had little App State done what it was supposed to and lost to A&M last week we wouldn’t be in this spot.
ESPN trucks should be rolling into College Station, Texas, right about now setting up for Saturday’s “College GameDay” telecast in the shadow of mammoth Kyle Field on campus. The Hurricanes should be preparing for their 25th all-time appearance (12th most ever) and first since 2020 on the biggest and most famous and fun of all pregame shows.
Instead those trucks are navigating into tiny Boone, N.C., and trying to find Appalachian State, which is hosting Troy on Saturday. Not sure if Troy is a guy or a university, but apparently it’s a big game in the Sun Belt Conference, and “College GameDay” is going to it after dropping UM-Texas A&M like a bad idea after Jimbo Fisher’s Aggies embarrassed themselves last week and fell like a man whose parachute didn’t open from No. 6 in the rankings to No. 24.
But that isn’t the only reason Canes should be cursing App State.
The Mountaineers’ upset win also made it more likely Miami, 2-0 and up to No. 13 in The Associated Press poll, loses its first game of the season this week.
It’s plain human nature. Fisher’s Aggies will be more amped up and desperate Saturday night, and less likely to be distracted and looking ahead to the following week’s visit by a higher-ranked and bigger rival in No. 10 Arkansas. Not to mention the game soon after that at No. 2 Alabama, where Fisher’s feud with Nick Saban will be decided on the field.
Miami will have A&M’s full attention now, whereas a win-as-expected over Appalachian State might have had Aggie minds wandering for the 9 p.m. kickoff on ESPN. (Meaning the game will end around 1 a.m., because endless TV timeouts make college games move like glaciers).
I said earlier Texas A&M will be UM’s most telling test of the season.
The biggest game and toughest opponent is sure to be the late-season encounter at No. 5 Clemson, which, in UM dreams, could see a rematch soon after in the ACC Championship Game.
But it’s the result at A&M on Saturday that will tell the nation whether Miami has earned the audacious right to imagine itself being a contender for the conference title or — even wilder — being in the mix for the (still) four-team College Football Playoff.
Kyle Field will be filled with more than 102,000 fans. Prime time. Foreign stadium. “A very hostile environment,” UM coach Mario Cristobal promises. “It’s as loud or the loudest place to play in college football.”
Texas A&M is still seen as better by bettors, a 5 1/2-point favorite. Yet ESPN’s Football Power Index computers say Miami has a 53.6% likelihood of winning — the biggest tossup on UM’s enter 2022 schedule.
Why not the Canes is a case I could make, but it starts with winning Saturday and planting Fisher firmly on the hot seat.
Cristobal was an assistant under Nick Saban at Alabama from 2013 to 2016, after FIU but before Oregon. Saban used to refer to distractions, like looking ahead, as “rat poison.”
“We really focus on being internally driven and gearing everything towards that because everything outside of that, all the noise and the fluff, that isn’t going to help you when you’re playing against really good football teams in crunch situations,” Cristobal said. “[Texas A&M is] as talented as any team in the country. They are extremely explosive, physical, and massive. They beat Alabama [last year]. This is a game that we all recognize as an opportunity.”
The opportunity is to stamp a signature road win on the budding Cristobal era before a national audience. The opportunity is to state you can play with anybody, anywhere.
There is a bigger picture to see. To Cristobal, looking at it is the “rat poison.” But is is there, undeniable:
Texas A&M is UM’s biggest test, by far, until Clemson on Nov. 19.
Win in College Station and the idea of Miami being 10-0 going into Clemson is not preposterous. It is doable. In every remaining game after this Saturday, except Clemson, the FPI index gives UM at least a 73.5% likelihood of winning them all.
That’s getting ahead of ourselves. “Rat poison,” as Saban would warn.
For now, just say that beating Texas A&M on Saturday would be the early signature win that gives the Cristobal era liftoff, and makes America start paying attention to the Miami Hurricanes again.
