Mario Cristobal looks safe in Coral Gables for the long haul, but the same can’t be said for several coaches Miami will face in the ACC this season.
The Hurricanes’ schedule puts them in line to see four head coaches who could be out of a job during or after 2026, and the list starts with a familiar heavyweight. Dabo Swinney at Clemson is still the standard-bearer in name, but the program around him has changed.
He is less than a year older than Cristobal, yet he comes across as a coach from another era because he has resisted NIL, the transfer portal and just about everything else tied to modern college football. Clemson is no longer the same machine that reached the playoff six straight years from 2015-2020 and won two national championships, and the question now is whether Swinney can drag it back or whether the Tigers settle into the middle of the ACC while he stays put.
Florida State’s Mike Norvell is in even shakier territory. The source suggests his time may already be running out before Miami even gets there on October 17, and says he likely would have been gone after last season if the Seminoles could have afforded it. The piece frames that situation as piling on, but also notes that many Miami fans would actually prefer Norvell remain in place because it keeps FSU from moving forward.
At North Carolina, Bill Belichick’s arrival has already turned into a mess. The question in Chapel Hill is blunt: what are they even doing?
The program is described as trying to push the failed GM out the door, and there’s real doubt he even lasts to the Week 0 opener against TCU in Dublin. If he does survive that long, the outlook still doesn’t look good beyond 2026.
Boston College’s Bill O’Brien rounds out the group. The article says it makes sense that the Eagles kept him after a 2-10 season, since the program isn’t in a place where it can simply eat a buyout after two years. Miami gets BC in the regular-season finale, and the piece casts it as a possible post-Thanksgiving farewell for O’Brien if the end comes on that road trip south.
In Other News...
Miami Receiver Room Is Earning Elite National Respect
Miamis receiver room is starting to draw the kind of national attention that usually comes only after a unit proves it can overwhelm defenses on Saturdays. CBS Sports recently slotted the Hurricanes at No. 2 among college footballs pass-catching groups, trailing only Oregon, and the reason is easy to see: Miami has stacked proven talent through the portal, including Vandrevius Jacobs, Cam Vaughn and Cooper Barkate, while giving itself a deeper and more versatile mix than it had before.
Jacobs and Vaughn arrive with productive track records from Power Four stops, and their presence adds another layer to a room that already had enough name value to get people talking. The broader conversation around elite college football receiver groups even spilled into social media, where programs like Ohio State and USC were cited as examples of schools with multiple Hall of Fame-caliber pass catchers, a reminder of the standard Miami is now trying to meet. [Read more 🡒]
Mario Cristobal Critics Are Looking Worse By The Day
The debate around Mario Cristobal has only grown louder as Miamis recent rise has given his rsum more weight than his detractors expected. Cristobal has already stacked up conference titles at different stops, and even with the Hurricanes still chasing the sports top tier, his ability to build and sustain a program has become harder to dismiss for anyone watching from South Florida.
Michael Lombardis criticism of Cristobal was always going to invite a response from Miami circles, especially after the Hurricanes won 10 games in 2024 and still missed the playoff. What makes the whole back-and-forth more awkward now is that Lombardis own situation has shifted dramatically, leaving his old assessment of Cristobal looking a lot less sturdy than it did when he first said it. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana Suddenly Has A Player In College Footballs Biggest Money Talk
The money talk in college football has gotten so loud that it now overlaps with one of the biggest names in pro sports, and Miami is right in the middle of it. With LeBron James taking a two-year, $8 million deal with the 76ers and several college players projected to top that kind of annual haul through NIL, the sports financial ceiling has shifted in a hurry. At the top of that list is Hurricanes quarterback Darian Mensah, whose value through NIL deals is being pegged at $6.5 million.
Mensahs rise adds another layer to Miamis offseason intrigue because he arrives in Coral Gables after already moving through two other schools in a short span. He transferred from Duke, where he threw for nearly 4,000 yards and 34 touchdowns while helping win an ACC title, and now he steps into a program that has been willing to spend aggressively to stay in the national conversation. The bigger question around Miami is no longer just how good Mensah can be, but how long a market like this can keep climbing before the numbers get even harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]