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Alabama over Miami? Paul Finebaum weighs in following upset loss at Syracuse
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Alabama and Miami might be on a collision course, but not on the field.
The 2 teams are both on the borderline when it comes to making the College Football Playoff. The Crimson Tide have 3 losses, which would eliminate most every other team automatically. Meanwhile, Miami is coming off a disastrous loss at Syracuse on Saturday that bumped the Hurricanes from the ACC title game and just might’ve bumped them out of the Playoff.
ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum believes Miami might be on the outside looking in come Sunday when the Playoff field is picked, and he certainly believes Alabama should make it over the Hurricanes if it comes down to those 2 teams.
“There’s no way Miami deserves to be (ahead of Alabama), and I’m going to talk about some things that almost happened and some things that did happen,” said Finebaum during his weekly Monday morning appearance on the McElroy & Cubelic In The Morning show. “(Miami) almost lost 3 more games. … To do what they did, and I respect Syracuse, but you just can’t let that happen. And that’s the DNA of this Miami team.”
Finebaum was asked about the “fraud” label that he put on Miami over the weekend. He’s not sure he’s ready to call them fradulent as a team, but does believe they are frauds as national title contenders:
“Someone asked me are they fraudulent? That’s a strong phrase. They’re fraudulent as a national championship contender,” said Finebaum. “They’re a bubble team in the Playoff, and I think they got too much credit for their record. And even one of their better wins happened when Florida was a wreck. Do you think Miami could have beaten Florida on the final day of the season as opposed to the first? I say they couldn’t have. They don’t belong in there. To me, SMU is a much better argument as a (potential) 2-loss team than Miami.”
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
