Hurricanes’ ‘magical’ title-game run a boon for athletic department, university

As the field began to clear Thursday after the Fiesta Bowl, following the Miami Hurricanes’ College Football Playoff semifinal win, Joe Echevarria could only marvel at what he was witnessing.

Long before he assumed his roles and president and CEO of both the University of Miami and UHealth, Echevarria has long been a fan of his alma mater’s football team. He has been at every one of the team’s national championship games and seen the Hurricanes win it five times, but not since the 2001 season.

Now, they’re in a position to do potentially win it all again.

“It’s magical,” Echevarria, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from UM in 1978 and has been the university’s president since 2024, said from the field at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, after Miami’s 31-27 semifinal win over the Ole Miss Rebels. “It’s restored the University of Miami to its rightful place and tradition in college football. College football is better when we win.”

It took a little while to get to this point, but the Hurricanes are finally winning again. They are in the national title game in Year 4 under coach Mario Cristobal, who Echevarria played a part in hiring. No. 10 Miami (13-2) faces the top-ranked and undefeated Indiana Hoosiers (15-0) on Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in the championship (7:30 p.m., ESPN).

As UM prepares to play in a title game for the first time since the 2002 season and chases the school’s sixth overall football national championship — playing for that title in its home stadium, no less — the run to this point has already been a boon for the athletic department and the university as a whole.

To get here required the university and athletic department to be in lockstep while navigating through this ever-changing landscape of college athletics. This includes the rise of NIL (name, image and likeness), the ability for universities to pay student-athletes directly through revenue sharing and the revolving door of the transfer portal.

“Investment and alignment, and those group of kids and the coaching staff, right kids doing it the right way,” Echevarria said. “Steady, progressive. ... It’s a special place.”

And it’s not lost on Cristobal or Hurricanes athletic director Dan Radakovich what having that support from Echevarria and the university means to their success.

“We’re seeing the fruits of that investment,” Radakovich said. “In today’s athletic world, it’s absolutely critical that you have that alignment. That word gets thrown around a lot, but it’s important. Everything that they talked about and how they wanted to be involved and how they wanted to move things along has certainly occurred.”

Added Cristobal: “That’s everything as it relates to putting together a program, whether through building one or sustaining one. Vertical alignment is at the forefront of making a decision to go to a place or staying at a place. Without that, it doesn’t work because the investment from a people standpoint, a time standpoint, a money standpoint, is immense. Unless everybody is going in the same direction, it doesn’t work, no matter how much time and effort you put into it. We’re extremely blessed to have someone like Joe heading up the university and of course, Dan Radekovich has done a great job.”

The results are showing.

Miami, the last at-large team to make the playoff field, has already won three games as the lower seed during this postseason march. The Hurricanes knocked off No. 7 Texas A&M 10-3 on its home field in the first round, then upset the defending national champion and No. 2 seed Ohio State Buckeyes 24-14 in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve in the quarterfinal before their semifinal victory over No. 6 Ole Miss on Thursday.

“What a win,” Echevarria said of the Fiesta Bowl, a game that featured four lead changes in the final seven minutes capped by quarterback Carson Beck’s go-ahead 3-yard rushing touchdown with 18 seconds left and a final defensive stop. “I remind people: We were great for 20 years, but we’re a 100-year university. We need to get back to what we were before. And as Mario likes to say: ‘We’re not back; we’re here.’ But we earned it the right way. Five wins, seven wins, 10 wins. What do we have now? 13 wins. Yes, 13 wins.”

Like Echevarria, this run has been special for Radakovich. He was hired days after Cristobal to lead the athletic department and has seen firsthand how Cristobal overhauled the football team to become a national contender.

Now, there are results to back the process.

And the past three wins have come with some incentives beyond just the chance to compete for a championship.

Conferences earn payouts for their teams getting to specific stages of the College Football Playoff: $4 million per team for simply making the field, another $4 million per team for reaching the quarterfinals, another $6 million per team for reaching the semifinals and then finally $6 million more per team for making the national championship.

How the conferences divide the money is up to them. The Southeastern Conference, for example, gives the majority of the money directly to the schools that earned it while splitting a smaller amount among the rest of the conference’s teams. The Big Ten and Big 12, meanwhile, distribute the money evenly among all conference teams.

But the Atlantic Coast Conference gives all the money earned directly to the team(s) that earned it. So Miami will receive the entire $20 million payout it earned the ACC for making the national championship game.

Radakovich on Monday said no funds have been specifically earmarked yet. A UM spokesperson previously told the Herald that money will go toward general operation of the athletic department. Some likely will contribute to UM’s NIL fund.

“It’ll help for sure,” Radakovich said, “and our job is to make sure it doesn’t get spent many times over.”

Ultimately, the Hurricanes hope the success this year and the benefits they have received from it will help ensure UM stays among college football’s elite beyond this season. Cristobal has set his foundation and gotten the Hurricanes back to national relevance. The goal now is to maintain that status.

“I think we all believed, but we’re biased,” Echevarria said with a laugh. “We earned our way in, and I think the results have proven we were right about it. It’s extraordinary. ... They just found a way.”