Columbus Brotherhood Runs Deep as Miami and Indiana Meet in National Championship
There’s a lot on the line in this year’s national championship game between Miami and Indiana, but if you zoom out just a bit, you’ll find something even more remarkable: a reunion of sorts, nearly 40 years in the making. Three key figures in this title clash - Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, Hurricanes offensive line coach Alex Mirabal, and the father of Indiana’s star quarterback - all once shared the same offensive line at Columbus High School in Miami back in 1986.
Yes, you read that right. Before they were coaching on the sport’s biggest stage or raising Heisman winners, they were grinding it out together under the Friday night lights of South Florida.
Cristobal. Mirabal. Mendoza.
Their former coach, Dennis Lavelle, remembers those days well - and he doesn’t need to embellish them. No tall tales, no exaggerated legends. Just a brutally tough team that won in the trenches.
“We made a living up front,” Lavelle said. “Our offensive and defensive lines were full of Division I kids.”
That 1986 Columbus offensive line is now echoing through the college football world. Cristobal is leading Miami’s resurgence.
Mirabal, his longtime right-hand man, is shaping one of the most physical offensive lines in the country. And Fernando Mendoza IV - their former teammate - is watching from the stands as his son, Fernando Mendoza V, quarterbacks Indiana into the national spotlight.
Mendoza V has already made his mark this season, bringing home the Heisman Trophy. But before he was lighting up defenses, his father was making his own name - first on the football field, then on the water.
Fernando Mendoza IV was a standout lineman at Columbus, described by local media as the team’s top offensive lineman in 1986. But he wasn’t just a football guy.
He also starred in rowing, winning gold at the 1984 U.S. Junior National Championships and again in 1987 with the U.S. eight-man crew that took the World Junior Rowing title in West Germany.
He later rowed at Brown University.
The Spanish edition of the Miami Herald summed him up in two words: “Un ganador.” A winner.
That label fits not just Mendoza IV, but the entire 1986 Columbus team. Lavelle called his squad “very vanilla” on offense - no high-flying schemes, no trick plays.
But they didn’t need the flash. They had the line.
Case in point: their 3-0 upset over Southridge, the top-ranked team in the state at the time. Columbus threw just five passes, completed one, and won the game on a Carlos Huerta field goal - the same Huerta who would go on to kick at Miami with Cristobal.
That kind of win doesn’t happen without dominance in the trenches.
Cristobal, who earned all-state honors the following year, remembers that brotherhood vividly. “When you go to Columbus,” he said, “that brotherhood is extremely strong.”
It’s a bond that’s lasted decades. Mirabal eventually returned to Columbus as an assistant coach under Lavelle.
Cristobal and Mirabal have stayed in touch with their old coach, even helping him attend Miami’s playoff opener at Texas A&M. When Cristobal’s Oregon team beat Ohio State in 2021, Lavelle was in the stands.
When Miami took down the Buckeyes again this year to reach the title game, Lavelle called it one of the great experiences of his life.
These aren’t just football connections. They’re life connections.
Cristobal hasn’t remained in close contact with Mendoza IV, who now works as a doctor in the emergency department at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. But the respect is still there.
“All the respect in the world for him and his family,” Cristobal said.
Mendoza V, meanwhile, followed in his father’s footsteps at Columbus, starting two seasons at quarterback just a few miles from Miami’s campus. But he never got an offer from the Hurricanes.
Cristobal had just taken the job when Mendoza committed to Cal. That’s one that got away.
Lavelle jokes with Cristobal about the miss: “How could you have missed him, coach?”
In truth, nearly everyone else missed him too. Mendoza was a two-star recruit coming out of high school. He transferred from Cal to Indiana, where his brother Alberto now backs him up.
And now? He’s the face of Indiana football, carving up defenses and leading the Hoosiers to the national title game.
“Man, can he play,” Lavelle said. “Holy crap, he is the real deal.”
So here we are, with a national championship game that doubles as a Columbus High reunion. One Mendoza under center.
Another in the stands. Cristobal and Mirabal on the opposite sideline.
And a proud old coach watching it all unfold, knowing that the roots of this moment stretch back to those hot South Florida practices in the ‘80s.
“That was just the greatest time in the world,” Lavelle said. “I miss it. I miss the (crap) out of it, I really do.”
The uniforms may have changed. The stadium is bigger.
The stakes are higher. But the foundation - that Columbus brotherhood - is still holding strong.