No. 10 Miami Stuns No. 2 Ohio State, Advances to CFP Semifinal

Miami entered Arlington as a heavy underdog and left as the architect of one of the College Football Playoff’s most consequential surprises. The No. 10-seeded Hurricanes, 11-2 on the season, beat defending national champion and No. 2 seed Ohio State, 12-1, 24-14 at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year’s Eve, flipping momentum in the first half and holding firm as the Buckeyes mounted a late, ultimately doomed rally.

Miami seized control early and built a 14-0 halftime lead. The turning point came on a 72-yard interception return for a touchdown when Julian Sayin’s pass was picked off by Miami defensive back Keionte Scott. The score swung field position and momentum, energizing a defense that repeatedly forced Ohio State into mistakes and limited the Buckeyes’ customary offensive explosiveness. Miami’s running game complemented the defense, chewing clock and dictating tempo in a way that neutralized Ohio State’s playmakers.

Pregame analytics framed the result as a significant upset. Miami opened as a 9.5-point underdog, and analytics models gave the Hurricanes roughly a 29.5 percent chance to win against Ohio State’s 70.5 percent pregame probability. Those numbers underscored how unexpected Miami’s performance was on paper and how disruptive it proved on the field.

Ohio State attempted a late comeback. A critical sequence late in the fourth quarter left the Buckeyes with just one timeout after a catch by a player identified as Daniels, at which point Miami intentionally shifted to clock management to deny Ohio State a realistic final drive. With 55 seconds remaining, a touchdown by a player listed as Brown narrowed the margin to 10 points, but Miami’s final resistance held. Sayin’s fourth-quarter interception with 43 seconds left extinguished the Buckeyes’ last opportunity and sealed the Hurricanes’ advance.

Beyond the immediate thrill of the upset lies larger significance for college football. The result is being viewed as the biggest upset in CFP history under either the original four-team format or the expanded 12-team model. In the first season of the 12-team playoff, the outcome continues an unexpected pattern: all four teams that received first-round byes have now fallen in the quarterfinals, leaving bye teams 0-5 in those games. That trend raises fresh questions about competitive balance, seeding methodology, and whether byes confer the advantages traditionally assumed in postseason design.

For Miami, the win delivers a surge in national exposure, recruiting cachet and donor enthusiasm, and sets up a Sugar Bowl semifinal matchup against the winner of Georgia and Ole Miss. For Ohio State, the defending champion’s abrupt exit underscores the thin margins at the sport’s summit and the increased volatility the expanded playoff brings to postseason narratives.

Culturally, the upset reinforces the enduring appeal of the underdog in college football and illustrates how a single game can reshape perceptions of programs, conferences and coaching legacies. The broader business of the sport, from television audiences to wagering markets and the economic spinoffs for host cities, will be watching how momentum from this night ripples through the playoffs and into the 2026 cycle.