Miami Hurricanes football history: Updated on August 18, 2026.
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Miami won five national championships between 1983 and 2001, and the 1991 “Wide Right” game against Florida State remains one of college football’s most infamous finishes.
The Miami Hurricanes football program has gone from a rocky founding season to, a century later, its first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Here is the program’s full history, from its 1926 founding through the historic 2025 season and what comes next in 2026.
Miami Hurricanes Football History: The Program’s Founding
The Miami Hurricanes football program was established in 1926 and began varsity competition in 1927 under coach Howard Buck, who led the team to a 3-6-1 record in its debut season, including a 39-3 opening win over Rollins College.
Five National Championships
The University of Miami won five national championships between 1983 and 2001, building one of the most storied résumés in college football during that stretch:
- 1983 — Howard Schnellenberger, 11-1, beat No. 1 Nebraska 31-30 in the Orange Bowl.
- 1987 — Jimmy Johnson, 12-0, beat Oklahoma 20-14 in the Orange Bowl.
- 1989 — Dennis Erickson (first year), beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, part of the run that earned Miami the nickname “The Team of the 1980s.”
- 1991 — Dennis Erickson, 12-0, another Orange Bowl win over Nebraska.
- 2001 — Larry Coker, 12-0, routed Nebraska in the Rose Bowl for the BCS National Championship, on a roster many analysts still rank among the best in college football history.
Standout players from across the program’s history include quarterback Vinny Testaverde and safety Bennie Blades, both central figures during Miami’s championship-era dominance.
The Davis and Coker Eras, and the Move to the ACC
Coach Butch Davis led Miami to strong seasons from 1998 to 2000, posting records of 9-3, 9-4, and 11-1 as he rebuilt the program’s national relevance. Larry Coker then guided the Hurricanes through their final Big East Conference years from 2001 to 2003. Miami joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2004 and competed in the ACC’s Coastal Division starting in 2005, until the conference eliminated divisions entirely in 2023.
The Cristobal Era and a Historic 2025 Season
Mario Cristobal took over as head coach in 2022, and Miami’s win total climbed in each of his first four seasons, five wins, then seven, then ten, before a breakthrough 13-3 campaign in 2025 that set a new single-season school record. That 2025 team earned Miami’s first-ever College Football Playoff berth as the No. 10 seed, defeated Texas A&M in the first round, beat defending national champion Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, and topped Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl before falling just short of the national title at Hard Rock Stadium. Cristobal enters the 2026 season with a 35-19 overall record at Miami and, as of early August 2026, has reportedly agreed to a long-term contract extension keeping him with the program. For more on this year’s roster battles, see this report on Miami’s 2026 fall camp kicker competition.
The Florida State Rivalry
Miami and Florida State first met on the field in 1951, but the rivalry took on national-championship stakes in the 1980s once both programs became consistent top-10 contenders under coaches Howard Schnellenberger and Bobby Bowden. The series became infamous for kicking miscues deciding ranked matchups, starting with the “Wide Right” field-goal miss on November 16, 1991, that became part of program lore on both sides; seven ranked meetings between the schools since 1990 have turned on missed field goals. The rivalry remains one of the most consequential in the ACC given both programs’ championship histories.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Miami enters the 2026 season, Cristobal’s fifth year, carrying the weight of last season’s near-miss rather than a rebuild. A program that spent much of the post-Coker era chasing its old championship standard now enters the year as a legitimate national title contender, with the roster and coaching continuity to build directly on 2025’s playoff run rather than starting over.
This Miami Hurricanes history will be updated as the 2026 season progresses.
