Miami football isn’t back yet, but it’s close

Plenty of discussion last winter was reserved for dissecting if the Miami Hurricanes were, in fact, back. For as the much of The U being back has been a topic, predating the 2025 Hurricanes’ run to the National Championship Game, what being back actually means can have vastly different definitions.

Surely, had Miami knocked off an unbeaten Indiana — and the Hurricanes came a Jamari Sharpe interception away from doing just that — it would have constituted The U being back. Right?

Well…

Miami’s run to the finale of last season’s College Football Playoff was remarkable; so, too, was it taking Indiana to the wire in a 27-21 classic, with the Hurricanes playing the Hoosiers closer than most of the national champions’ competition in the 2025 campaign.

That run was also unprecedented in the history of college football. Of course, there have been only two instances in which a team like Miami, which went 10-2 in the regular season and missed its own conference championship game, could win a national championship in such fashion.

The 2025 Hurricanes capitalized on the opportunities afforded them by a much different landscape than that which existed during the program’s roughly 20-year heyday, and that’s commendable. But it’s not comparable to that heyday, unofficially spanning from 1983 when the late legend Howard Schnellenberger coached The U to its first championship and ending on Ohio State’s improbable win in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.

Incredibly, as we head into the silver anniversary of Miami’s last national championship, it’s been almost as long since a Hurricanes team won a conference title. That came in 2003, the program’s final season in the Big East, when The U shared the crown with West Virginia (albeit having survived a 22-20 struggle with the Mountaineers in the head-to-head matchup).

For context, Miami’s conference championship drought is going on five years longer than the span between its first national championship and last.

As a program-first ACC title continued to elude Miami, with losses to Louisville and SMU instead landing Virginia and Duke in Charlotte, the Hurricanes’ 2025 postseason run isn’t in the same category as the 2001 title won in dominant fashion by arguably the most talented collegiate roster ever assembled.

It’s not the 1987 or 1991 crowns when Miami ran the table, nor is it 1983 and 1989 when the Hurricanes rallied from regular-season losses to in-state rivals to finish on top. But 2025 could be the foundation on which Miami is back.

Although none of the 2026 Hurricanes when Miami was Miami, the mystique never faded. Running back Mark Fletcher Jr., Offensive MVP of last year’s Cotton Bowl, offered commentary on Adam Breneman’s “Next Up” podcast to this end:

“’Ive seen how great Miami was, seen the great players that they’ve had, and I could help Miami at least a little closer to that, and I’ve got one more year to do it,” Fletcher said. “I would love to do that.”

Fletcher and wide receiver Malachi Toney, both products of South Florida (Fort Lauderdale and Miami’s Liberty City), provide the 2026 Hurricanes with one of the nation’s most potent skill-position combos. And while Miami has no ACC championship experience, its quarterback does.

Adding ACC Championship Game MVP and the conference’s passing yards leader a season ago, Darian Mensah, sets up the Hurricane offense nicely. A key transfer likewise provides the pillar for Miami’s 2026 title outlook on defense, with Damon Wilson II coming to Coral Gables off of a nine-sack season at Missouri.

There’s plenty to like about Miami’s chances of returning to past glory in 2026 — and doing so in a fashion that unambiguously declares the Hurricanes as being back by any definition.