COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Michael Irvin couldn’t contain his joy. So, when he found Mario Cristobal, the University of Miami’s most famous Hurricane and loudest cheerleader planted a kiss on the coach’s cheek midinterview on national television.
It was sloppy, wet and decades in the making. “I couldn’t find enough wipes to clean myself,” Cristobal joked afterward.
Miami won its biggest football game in more than two decades Saturday at Kyle Field, a stadium where 104,122 fans and the wind made it really hard for the Hurricanes’ offense to operate. In the end, all Miami needed to complete its 10-3 win over Texas A&M was a late Mark Fletcher Jr.-engineered scoring drive, one Malachi Toney catch-and-run touchdown and a game-sealing interception from freshman Bryce Fitzgerald.
What it took to get here — a first College Football Playoff win, 24 years after the Hurricanes last hoisted the national championship trophy at the Rose Bowl — is an entirely different story.
Miami school president Joe Echevarria, a 1978 Miami graduate who helped lure Cristobal back home from Oregon four years ago with promises he’d have all the financial support and alignment needed to bring “The U” back, knows the full scope of that tale.
Echevarria was around for Miami’s glory years from 1983 to 2001, when it won five national championships, and he was around for the last two decades-plus of frustration and disappointment, serving as a member of the Board of Trustees. For years, Miami operated on the cheap, believing the oodles of high school talent in South Florida would come play for it regardless of the coach, facilities or record of the team on the field.
Miami’s administration learned the hard way.
Saturday, Echevarria stood like a proud father, arms crossed, surveying the scene he helped build as Irvin kissed Cristobal and Miami’s players and fans celebrated its monumental moment together.
“We had to learn that the game has changed,” said Echevarria, who with the help of Miami’s name, image and likeness collective and lots of other donors and boosters helped Cristobal and the Hurricanes build the kind of roster needed to compete. “You have to invest. When you invest, like all business people, you expect a return. Here’s the return: Winning.
“It’s an incredible accomplishment. This is the biggest moment in 20-plus years for football. But like I said, we’re on schedule. Five wins. Seven wins. 10 wins, 10 wins and a Playoff win. It’s all gravy now.”
Miami, though, doesn’t want this ride to end yet. The Hurricanes (11-2) will be back in Texas for New Year’s Eve and a date with the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes in the Cotton Bowl. The 10th-seeded Hurricanes, who pulled off the road upset Saturday against the seventh-seeded Aggies (11-2), are going to need to play a lot better on offense to knock off OSU coach Ryan Day’s team.
Quarterback Carson Beck (14 of 20, 103 yards, 1 TD) couldn’t get in a rhythm throwing the football Saturday. Toney — arguably the country’s best freshman — couldn’t get going no matter how much offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson kept feeding him the football. Dawson finally decided late in the game to feed the one player who was effective all afternoon: Fletcher.
Fletcher lost his dad last year, and every time he has touched the ball over the past 14 months, Mark Sr. has been on his mind. When Miami took over at its own 14-yard line with 4:01 to play, score tied at 3, Fletcher, the 6-foot-2, 225-pound junior running back, asked his teammates to give him a chance to take the game over. He did, busting through the Aggies’ secondary for 56 yards. He carried it four more times after that for 2, 12, 3 and 2 yards, setting the stage for Toney’s touchdown on a shovel pass from Beck.
MARK FLETCHER ALL DAMN DAY #PMSCFP pic.twitter.com/mBfeeHQRkF
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 20, 2025
“Just grateful for the opportunity and happy we won,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher came to Miami in 2023, after Cristobal went 5-7 in his first season with the Hurricanes. He was committed to Ohio State, but the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., native decided at the last minute to stay home so his parents could watch him play.
His mom, Linda, drives to every game from the family home in South Florida. She even drove cross-country to Berkeley, Calif., last season, the night Cam Ward led Miami’s miraculous comeback against future Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza.
Saturday, Mom was up in the stands with a sign that read: “Freight Train Fletcher.”
“She means everything to me. That’s my rock, my world,” said Fletcher, who ran for 172 yards on 17 carries. “Every day I wake up and breathe, I have another opportunity to do something like this and hopefully give other people who might be going through something belief that the story is not over yet. Keep fighting.”
This Hurricanes season embodies that belief. Miami looked finished after it lost at SMU on Nov. 1. The team was 6-2 and No. 18 in the initial Playoff rankings — eight spots back of the same Notre Dame team it beat in Week 1.
Saturday, the Hurricanes shut down the same Aggies offense that torched the Irish in South Bend in Week 2. Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed turned it over three times. His offensive line, which allowed 12 sacks in 12 games and talked trash about Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr., gave up seven to the Hurricanes. Bain had three and felt vindicated.
Texas A&M also ran for only 89 yards on 35 attempts and failed to score when it had a chance to at the very end. Fitzgerald, the freshman who was the last of the new faces to enroll at Miami this summer, clinched it with his sixth interception of the season.
Bryce Fitzgerald clinched the win for Miami with his interception in the end zone in the final minute. (Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
Defense? That was the thing holding Ward and the Hurricanes back last year. Not anymore. It’s catapulting them forward on one of the rare days Toney and Beck weren’t able to ignite the offense.
Irvin — the mouth of Miami — appreciates what defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, a finalist for the Broyles Award, has done. He couldn’t stop talking about Miami’s defense when the game was over. At one point amid the celebration, Irvin took off his belt, placed an Aggies jersey on top of a trash can and began whipping it.
“Every stadium we go in I hear people saying — Miami go home,” an excited Irvin said. “We plan on going home. Because home is where the national championship will be played.”
Cristobal isn’t the type of coach to soak in wins very long. He likes to wipe them off quickly and focus on the next opponent. But Saturday, he took a moment to reflect on the journey to this point.
“To see the pride returning to so many of our former players, our administration that’s worked so hard to put this together, our fans who traveled — they were felt,” Cristobal said.
“What does it mean for us? Forty-plus days ago, we were lower than low. We found a way to bring a different level of energy every single day and lift each other and the program up. Here we are with a chance to keep playing. That’s all that matters now. 1-0.”
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