Miami's Mario Cristobal Talks Notre Dame CFP Bracket Snub, Recalls Nick Saban Quote
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal empathizes with the raw feelings Notre Dame has after being left out of the College Football Playoff, but he also recognizes the system currently in place won't make everyone happy.
Cristobal invoked an old Nick Saban quote to assess how the playoff process works as he sees it.
"'If you want to make everybody happy, don't coach and get involved in football. Go sell ice cream, because the ice cream man makes everybody happy,'" Cristobal told reporters, which was a quote attributed to Saban when he was coaching Alabama. "In football, not everybody's going to be happy."
Cristobal knows that Saban-ism very well because he spent four seasons working with him at Alabama from 2013 to '16. He can also understand the feelings Notre Dame has because Miami was the second team out of the playoff field last year, behind the Crimson Tide.
The Hurricanes head coach praised Notre Dame as a "great football team" before acknowledging that the process to determine the 12-team playoff field will inevitably mean someone is unhappy:
"Notre Dame is a great football team. Processes like this ... all processes need to be assessed again and remedied wherever they can, but I think everybody's working at it. Last year we were excluded and we weren't very happy. It's a tough business, man. It's a really, really tough business. I respect everybody and everyone involved in it."
The process to get Miami up to No. 10, one spot ahead of Notre Dame, and the final at-large bid in the playoff is certainly one that warrants scrutiny. The Hurricanes were behind Notre Dame in the penultimate rankings released on Tuesday and neither team played this weekend, yet somehow the Fighting Irish dropped a spot.
It can certainly be argued the final result was correct because Miami has a head-to-head win over Notre Dame this season, but it doesn't make sense that Notre Dame was ahead of the 'Canes in each of the first five playoff polls before Sunday.
As a result of missing out on the College Football Playoff, Notre Dame announced it was withdrawing from consideration for any bowl games.
Cristobal and the Hurricanes will get ready for their first-round playoff game against Texas A&M at Kyle Field on Dec. 20.
