Josh Pate responded to 'The U is back' narrative surrounding Miami, makes Nebraska comparison

College football analyst Josh Pate responded to the “The U is Back” narrative surrounding Miami ahead of the national championship Monday. He even threw out a Nebraska comparison, which Husker fans might want to close their ears or look away.

The Hurricanes’ resurrection is more so that the program is back. For a school like Nebraska, they are still searching in the past rather than using forward thinking, as Pate explained.

“I would say yes, in a sense that there was this misnomer in college football for a long time, that the sport head left certain programs behind,” Pate said on Get Up. “We’ve all trafficked in this conversation, and in some cases, it’s valid. I’ll tell you one they’ll throw out there. I hope Matt Rhule is not watching. They’ll throw Nebraska out there a lot, and they’ll say what Nebraska used to be in the 90s, it’s impossible for them to be these days because of and then they fill in various changes and dynamics of the sport, and there was some validity to it. I always thought it was stupid when people threw Miami into that. 

“Miami had not fallen on hard times because the nature of the sport had passed them by. They’re just as many athletes in South Florida high schools today, if not more than there were a generation ago. They couldn’t get out of their own way. Miami had a Miami problem for a long time. Part of it was they were chasing the past.” 

How does Miami get the forward thinking to work? Well, it’s Mario Cristobal. Each season, Miami improved its win total under Cristobal and Year 4 was a return to prominence.

“So, enter Mario Cristobal,” Pate said. “(It’s) just an added bonus that he’s one of their own and he comes from an already established program that he had built in Oregon. And he’s the one who resurrects it, and he’s the one who uses a forward thinking vision, instead of trying to resurrect the past … It would be the reemergence of a former national power back to the main seat of college football. And we don’t see that very often.”

While Miami is rolling right now, Rhule and Nebraska have stayed steady at 5-7, 7-6 and 7-6, but haven’t broken through. To be fair, Year 4 could be that year.

But for now, the college football world is on No. 10 Miami as they look to win the national title at home Monday night. The opponent? Oh just a little team called the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers (15-0).