Miami at Texas A&M odds: Opening point spread released for first-round College Football Playoff game

The 2025 College Football Playoff field is set, and Miami leapfrogged its way into the 12-team bracket as the No. 10 seed after the CFP committeed utilized its head-to-head win over No. 11 Notre Dame in Week 1 as the final tiebreaker. That decision set up a first-round Playoff game between the 10th-seeded Hurricanes (10-2) and No. 7-seeded Texas A&M (11-1) on Dec. 20 in College Station.

BetMGM Sportsbook unveiled opening odds of the Playoff’s entire first round shortly after the field was unveiled Sunday. That included making the No. 7 Aggies a 3.5-point home favorite over the visiting ‘Canes, with an over-under total of 51.5 points, according to BetMGM.

Miami and Texas A&M have played only five times previously, including as non-conference opponents during a home-and-home series in 2022 and 2023 that the home team won each time. The ‘Canes hold a 3-2 all-time advantage with the most recent win, 48-33, on Sept. 9, 2023 from Miami Gardens. But the season prior, the Aggies won 17-9 on Sept. 17, 2022 in College Station.

Tulane-Ole Miss odds set, How to Watch

Time: Dec. 20 | 12 pm ET
Channel: ABC/ESPN/Fubo TV (Streaming)
Location: Kyle Field in College Station, Texas

CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek reveals why Miami made field, Notre Dame was left out

CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek explained how the 12-member selection committee came to the conclusion that Miami deserved to be the No. 10 team in this season’s final Playoff field during an after-reveal appearance on ESPN’s College Football Playoff Selection Show on Sunday. Ultimately it required the committee dropping previous No. 11 BYU down after a second lopsided loss (34-7) to No. 4 Texas Tech in Saturday’s Big 12 Championship Game, which allowed the committee to evaluate the resumes of Miami and Notre Dame side-by-side, with the Hurricanes’ Week 1 win becoming the final factor in their elevation to the No. 10 seed.

“The first move in that (decision-making process) was we felt like the way BYU performed in their (Big 12) championship game with a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion was worthy of Miami moving of them in the rankings. And once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody has been hungering for with Notre Dame and Miami,” Yurachek said on ESPN. “And when you looked at those teams on paper, they’re almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponent, the results against their common opponent. But the one metric that we had to fall back on again was the head to head. I charged the committee members to go back and watch that game again, the Miami -Notre Dame game because it was so far back, and we got some interesting debate from our coaches on what that game looked like as they watched it. With that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame in that 10^th spot.”

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