Miami Hurricanes saving state from total embarrassment | D'Angelo

Prior to last season, it had been more than a decade since a team from the state of Florida qualified for the FBS playoffs.

The state did not have a program finish in the top 5 during that span. And Florida schools won just four major bowls.

Thank the Miami Hurricanes for saving this one mighty college football hotbed from more embarrassment.

Because in 2025, Miami was the first team from the state in the playoffs since 2014, when Florida State lost in the semifinal. That came one year after FSU's — and the state's — last national championship.

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In the 10 years that followed the Seminoles' 13-1 season in 2014, no state team was ranked higher than No. 6 in the final poll.

Until 2025, when the Hurricanes turned back the clock.

Miami Hurricanes carrying state banner

Miami rolled through the second half of the season and was one play from winning the national championship. But that 27-21 loss to Indiana last January does not diminish what the Hurricanes accomplished after two decades of irrelevancy.

Still, the state is a shell of its heyday when at least two of the Big Three of Miami, Florida and Florida State were mainstays in the top 10, very often the top 3.

From 1983-2002, Florida had at least one team in the top 3 of the final poll for all but two years.

Miami has adapted better than anyone in this new age of pay for play, and parlayed that money — the Hurricanes' roster valuation is estimated to be about $38.5 million, among the highest in the country — into smart transfer portal acquisitions to go along with player development to rise to the top of the state.

Otherwise, it has not been so good for the state's other three major football schools:

• Florida State has been unable to recover from being inexplicably left out of the playoff after its undefeated season in 2023.
• Florida is on its fifth coach since 2014 (not including interims.
• UCF — now part of the state's upper-tier teams — has struggled in its step-up to the Power 4.

The state's power struggle has been cyclical this century. Like Florida owned much of the 2000s and Florida State dominated most of the 2010s, the 2020s are quickly becoming Miami's domain.

The Hurricanes open the season Sept. 4 at Stanford with their highest preseason ranking (No. 7) in more than 20 years. Coach Mario Cristobal relied on the portal to restock at quarterback for the third straight year. The first two were successful with Cam Ward becoming a top pick in the NFL Draft and Carson Beck leading Miami to the title game last season and now vying to be the Arizona Cardinals starting quarterback.

The 2027 choice is Darian Mensah, who burned his old school, Duke, in a controversial move that involved a legal dispute, a breached NIL deal and questionable timing. The Hurricanes offered a reported $6.5 million, according to the NIL Standard, to lure Mensah after they were rebuffed by early QB targets.

But, hey, its 2026, and now the norm in an organization with no rules.

"We were in the market for a quarterback," Cristobal said. "We felt the team was really set in so many areas. When Darian hit the portal, we felt this is a guy we would love to pursue."

Mensah said the success Ward and Beck had "was a huge factor as far as deciding to transfer, seeing what those two guys did last year. Made an attractive decision for me."

Having an offensive weapon the caliber of Malachi Toney, not to mention the biggest reason most every player hits the transfer portal, money, likely helped sway that decision.

Meanwhile, Cristobal hinted Miami maybe, kind of, sort of could get back into the business of actually developing its own quarterbacks.

"We feel going forward we are set in that room from a high school standpoint with what we have on the roster, what we have coming in," he said, before leaving this opening:

"I'll also say this; every single year is different. Even though our foundation is the high school player, we're never going to deny ourselves the opportunity to get better as a program if there is a player that we can pick up in the portal that can help our program elevate."

Can Florida State save Mike Norvell's job?

Miami has the clearest path of any school in the Power 4 to actually winning a title this season, even if it's just the ACC, something the Hurricanes never have done. Just one team in the state can have a say in that, and that is Florida State.

But things must change, and in a hurry for Mike Norvell, if the Seminoles can even think of challenging the Hurricanes.

FSU is coming off its worst two-year stretch in 50 years, including a 3-13 conference record. Norvell, in his eighth season, is feeling more pressure than perhaps any coach in the country, for different reasons, including a $10.3 million salary, which is among the top 12 in the nation.

The expectations do not bode well for Norvell, with six or seven wins seemingly the ceiling. That would mean the Seminoles searching for their third head coach since Jimbo Fisher left following the 2017 season.

FSU's biggest problem is it's losing the arms race to Miami and Florida. The Seminoles estimated roster valuation is reported at $24 million, certainly not in the same tax bracket as Miami and lower than the Gators' $28 million.

The Seminoles five highest paid players combined make less than Mensah. Starting quarterback Ashton Daniels transferred from Auburn to FSU, his third school in three years, for $800,000.

Of course, none of that will matter if Norvell can get FSU anywhere close to the magical 13-win, ACC title winning 2023 season.

"I believe in the potential of this team," Norvell said. "I believe in the work they've done … for the position they put themselves in. The mentality that they have. If we go fulfill potential, it'll be a successful year. And I believe in all things of what that can be."

Jon Sumrall takes reins at Florida

Florida did what FSU did not. It pulled the plug on its coach, replacing Billy Napier with Jon Sumrall, who averaged just less than 11 wins in four years at Troy and Tulane. The Gators really did not have a choice with Napier headed toward a third losing season in four years.

The Gators also went out and paid close to $2 million for a quarterback, bringing in Aaron Philo from Georgia Tech, and most importantly, retained a solid core of returning players, led by running back Jadan Baugh and edge rusher Jayden Woods.

"Keeping the Jaden Baughs and the Jayden Woods makes coaching a lot easier," Sumrall said. "Those guys are not just really good football players, but they're the kind of guys you want to build the culture around, because of how they carry themselves."

UCF's transition into Big 12 has been rough

UCF has learned what it's like playing Big Boy football. After averaging 10 wins a season its last five years in the American, the Knights have won 15 total games their first three years in the Big 12.

The solution, the Knights hope, is bringing back Scott Frost (the coach who engineered the magical 13-0 2017 season before being a major disappointment at his alma mater, Nebraska), and bringing in former James Madison QB and Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year, Alonza Barnett III.

"My expectations of myself are so much greater than anyone could say," Barnett said. "Naturally, there's a chip with that. I don't think I look for external reasons for motivation; the internal reasons and the belief that coach Frost has put on me to be a leader of this team and what the guys expect in a quarterback, taking care of the ball like we talked about in the QB room, and the tribe and family around me that believe in me."

Barnett is part of Frost's reboot, which includes signing more than 30 players from the transfer portal after going 5-7 in his first season of his second act in Orlando.

"I think it's going to be a yearly process every year," Frost said about rebuilding. "That's just where college football is now. You're going to try to keep as many pieces consistent as you can and recruit as many and keep them in your program as long as you can. But every year is going to be a new team. So we're going to have to go through this process to some degree every year."

Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Hurricanes saving state from total embarrassment | D'Angelo