With ‘awesome’ chance to win a title at home, Hurricanes want ‘bedlam’ at Hard Rock
The Miami Hurricanes have traveled to Texas twice and made the cross-country trek to Arizona so far in their magical College Football Playoff run, during which No. 10 UM has posted upset wins against the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies, No. 2 and defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes and No. 6 Ole Miss Rebels.
Their reward for going from the last at-large team into the field to one of the last two standing? A national championship game at home.
Hard Rock Stadium was the predetermined site for the title game, which in the CFP era rotates among major venues across the country, and always made it a possibility that Miami could have home-field advantage if it took care of business.
That will indeed be the case when Miami (13-2) plays the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers (15-0) on Monday night (7:30 p.m., ESPN) for the championship — potentially the Hurricanes’ sixth title, while the Hoosiers chase their first national football title in school history.
Should Miami win, it will be the fourth time they secured a national title with a win at home, also doing so in the 1983, 1987 and 1991 seasons with victories at the Orange Bowl.
“It’s gonna mean everything, man,” said Hurricanes linebacker Wesley Bissainthe, a Miami native and Miami Central alumnus. “I’m a Miami guy. Playing in front of my peers, playing from where I’m from, it’s gonna mean everything.”
The Hurricanes are the first team in the 12-year College Football Playoff era to play for a national title on its home field. Two teams played close to home — Georgia played in Atlanta for the 2018 national championship game (an overtime loss to Alabama) and LSU played in New Orleans for the 2020 national championship game (a win over Clemson).
But because Miami is one of the few college teams that plays in an NFL stadium, it’s also one of the few teams that has a true opportunity to play for a championship at home if the stars align right.
Of the 11 stadiums that have hosted or are slated to host a title game in the near future under the current CFP structure, only three are homes to college teams: Hard Rock Stadium, Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium (home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but where USF also plays) and Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium (home of the Las Vegas Raiders but where UNLV also plays).
“We got the job done,” linebacker Mohamed Toure said, “and now it’s a national championship at home, baby.”
It will be Miami’s ninth home game of the season but first since Nov. 15 after playing their past five — their final two regular-season games against Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh plus three playoff games — away from South Florida. The Hurricanes had a combined announced attendance of 510,673 for their eight regular-season home games.
So what are they expecting from the crowd when the title game kicks off Monday night?
“Bedlam,” University of Miami president Joe Echevarria said. “That’s our stadium. Listen, there was a great showing of fans [on the road]. The fans follow us everywhere. But we’re coming home. No matter what locker room we use, it’s our field. It’s our stadium. More importantly, it’s our city. We are the University of Miami.”
While Miami is playing at its home stadium, there are a few caveats that deter from truly making it a complete home-field advantage.
No. 1: Each team was given an allotment of 20,000 tickets for its fans, meaning Indiana will have its fair share of fans wearing crimson and white in the crowd.
No. 2: As the lower seed, Miami is technically the road team on Monday and will play from the north sideline instead of its customary spot on the south sideline.
That’s nitpicking, though.
The Hurricanes have an opportunity in front of them they know they can’t pass up.
And that’s why their treating their approach to the title game no differently than they did the first three rounds of the postseason.
“They aren’t really distractions,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said Monday. “You either create them or you don’t. It’s on people. So we get out ahead of that. That’s one of the stronger points of emphasis as you begin the week. Distractions and things and people have never been a part of the journey; you can’t let them become a part of it now. From the simplicity of getting an email to parents, ‘Take care of tickets by tomorrow because we don’t want your sons running around and trying to figure other things out.’ They already have school. We have to prepare for an awesome opportunity. We preach it. We teach it, and then we go and we get away from everybody, just like we did the last couple of weeks when we went on the road. ... It’s no different. You’ve just got to shut out the outside world and go to work.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 8:59 AM.
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