Oregon, Miami arrive in CFP years after messy Mario Cristobal divorce
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MIAMI GARDENS — At long last, perhaps all sides of Miami’s messy 2021 coaching divorce have finally found validation for their new beginnings.
As Oregon football head coach Dan Lanning stood astride the champions’ stage at Hard Rock Stadium on New Year’s Day to bask in a historic Orange Bowl shutout of Texas Tech, he did so a redemptive standard-bearer of college football’s millennial generation of head coaches.
The Ducks‘ 23-0 win over Texas Tech was the Orange Bowl’s first shutout in 34 years, washing out wounds from Oregon’s lopsided loss as the No. 1 overall seed in last year’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal.
The win improved Lanning’s record in four seasons at Oregon to 48-7, the best winning percentage (.873) among active FBS coaches.
The victory came less than 24 hours after the Ducks’ previous coach, Mario Cristobal, who scorned Oregon fans with his Miami courtship and abrupt departure in fall 2021, led the Miami Hurricanes to dethrone reigning national champion Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
It was an emphatic, emotional win and arguably the Hurricanes’ biggest since their legendary 2001 national championship season.
For the Hurricanes, it will certainly validate the ruthlessness that accompanied their separation from former head coach Manny Diaz.
Legacy of Miami’s coaching affair grows
The ripples from Miami’s divorce, which saw the Hurricanes and their decadent boosters pursue Cristobal midseason while Diaz was still under contract, continue to impact this college football season.
Diaz has enjoyed an accomplished first two seasons as Duke head coach and many might have argued he was outperforming his Miami successor at a less-heralded program prior to the Hurricanes’ upset over Ohio State.
The Blue Devils were unlikely champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference — the program’s first conference title since 1962 — thanks to a quirk of the expanded ACC’s scheduling and tiebreaker rules.
The Blue Devils’ surprising ACC title with an 8-5 record thrust Group of 5 conference winners Tulane and James Madison into the playoff field and matchups with Ole Miss and Lanning’s Oregon, respectively.
The programs’ lackluster playoff performances have added to calls to split the postseason between Power 4 and Group of 5 conferences.
Midseason coach courtships roil college football
Miami’s scandalous midseason pursuit of Cristobal has in many ways been overtaken by Lane Kiffin’s in-season exit from Ole Miss and college football’s litany of other issues with NIL and player transfers.
After all, Cristobal’s Ducks were successful but not necessarily elite and no longer in contention for a national championship at the time he left to return to his alma mater.
Perhaps, though, the faithful from Ole Miss and other jilted programs can find solace in Oregon’s rising standard under Lanning, whose elevation to head coach from Georgia defensive coordinator was first triggered by a coach’s midseason promiscuity.
Eric J. Wallace is deputy sports editor for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at ejwallace@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Mario Cristobal, Dan Lanning, Manny Diaz the coaching faces of CFP
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