Alabama instead of Miami? Paul Finebaum comments on the surprising loss at Syracuse

Alabama and Miami may be on a collision course, but not on the field.

When it comes to making it to the College Football Playoff, the two teams are both on the fence. The Crimson Tide have 3 losses, which would automatically eliminate most other teams. Meanwhile, Miami suffered a disastrous loss at Syracuse on Saturday that knocked the Hurricanes out of the ACC title game and potentially could have pushed them out of the playoffs.

Paul Finebaum, a college football analyst at ESPN, believes Miami could be on the outside when the playoff field is picked next Sunday, and he certainly believes Alabama should make it over the Hurricanes if it does depends on these two teams.

“Miami definitely doesn’t deserve to be (ahead of Alabama), and I’m going to talk about some things that almost happened and some things that actually happened,” Finebaum said during his weekly appearance Monday morning on US. TV channels McElroy & Cubelic in the morning show. “(Miami) almost lost three more games. … Doing 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 he applied to Miami over the weekend. He’s not sure he’s ready to call them fraudulent as a team, but believes they are frauds as national title contenders:

“Someone asked me if this is fraudulent? That is a strong sentence. As a national championship contender, they are fraudulent,” Finebaum said. “They’re a bubble team in the playoffs and I think they’ve gotten too much credit for their record. And even one of their better wins came when Florida was a wreck. Do you think Miami could have beaten Florida on the last day of the season rather than the first? I say they couldn’t have done that. You don’t belong there. To me, SMU as a (potential) two-loss team is a much better argument than Miami.”