Miami’s magical season came to a heartbreaking end. But as the devastated players trudged off the field, Hall of Famer and Miami alum Michael Irvin was there in the tunnel. He embraced each one with words of encouragement. On this night, with confetti falling for the wrong team on Miami’s home turf, Irvin’s role shifted from hype man to consoler. But his belief in Mario Cristobal’s program never wavered.​

“That’s going to be the difference, because those kids that are right here now saw what it’s like to be in your own home city and be on this stage,” Irvin said. “And they’ll feel that, and they’ll want to recreate this again. We should be here every year,” Irvin declared. “We got Mario, we got players, we got the guys. These guys have tasted this. They’ve tasted it at this level in their stadium. No doubt in my mind, we’ll be back here. I told the guys, stay out here. Because sometimes you got to feel this pain to reach your greatest you, and they felt it today.”

But the journey ahead is difficult. The Hurricanes will have to navigate that journey without several key pieces from now on. Francis Mauigoa, the dominant right tackle, is headed to the NFL along with pass rushers Akheem Mesidor and Bain, who terrorized quarterbacks all season. But Miami will return Fletcher and Toney, two local products who now understand what it takes to compete at this level. 

Cristobal’s program finished with a 13-3 record and Miami’s first-ever College Football Playoff appearance. The Hurricanes signed a top-10 recruiting class for 2026, headlined by five-star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell and a deep group of defensive playmakers.​

But the most immediate priority is finding Beck’s replacement. And Miami appears to be in pole position to land Duke transfer quarterback Darian Mensah, who threw for 3,973 yards and 34 touchdowns this season. Mensah is ranked as the No. 1 quarterback in the transfer portal and the No. 4 overall player available.  

Insiders have already placed crystal ball predictions for the Hurricanes. Missouri EDGE Damon Wilson, who posted nine sacks in 2025, is expected on campus Tuesday as Miami continues to reload through the portal. Cristobal has proven he can build championship contenders through that route. Cam Ward was a transfer who became the No. 1 overall NFL draft pick last year. Michael Irvin’s confidence is rooted in watching Mario Cristobal systematically return ‘The U’ to national relevance. The pain of Monday night was real, but so is the blueprint for getting back.​

Cristobal takes the blame, but won’t let it define Miami

In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Mario Cristobal shouldered the entire weight of what went wrong. “I’ll take the blame,” he told reporters. “We’re one drive short of winning a national championship.” It was a sobering admission. Cristobal spoke with genuine affection about his players. He called them “a really resilient, tough, special group of human beings” who’d been “the best thing that’s happened to the University of Miami and the community in 25 years.” He made it clear that while they didn’t finish the job Monday night, they’d already accomplished something monumental by returning The U to relevance.​

But Cristobal’s most important message came when he addressed what happens next. He wasn’t about to let one gut-wrenching loss derail everything they’d built. “If you’re worth a damn as a competitor, you give the disappointment a direction,” Cristobal told reporters. “You don’t automatically return a game like this because you’re mad. It’s the biggest misconception in sports.” Those words echoed Michael Irvin’s tunnel message about feeling the pain to reach your greatest potential.

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Both men understood that Miami’s returning players now possessed something more valuable than a trophy. They knew what it felt like to be one drive away, and that hunger wouldn’t fade. Cristobal had proven he could get Miami to the mountaintop; now he just had to prove they could climb it again.