I keep seeing the media saying "Miami is Back". There seem to be a lot of different idea's of what "Back" means.
To me I believe Traditionally "Back" meant in the national title conversation. To be in that convo we needed to finish with 1 loss or less and top 4 sometimes top 5-6. We played for 10 National Titles from 1983-2002 winning 6*
.
I believe with the new Playoff setup you could technically be back if you finish in the top 12 but I expect it would be somewhat rare for a 12th ranked team to win the playoff and win it all. Back to me would mean finishing in the top 6 of the 12-team playoff and at least Split the rivalry games if not win both this year.
I realize some people define back as winning it all but realistically we have only been back like 6 times lol. I think being in the hunt is really what we aim for and understand some years we will win it all and some years we won't, basically like our status from 1983-2002.