Miami fans around the country were overjoyed after their Hurricanes outlasted Texas A&M in a first-round College Football Playoff slugfest at Kyle Field last Saturday, but no one wore their emotions on their sleeve quite the way that Miami legend Michael Irvin did.

As Mario Cristobal was being interviewed by ESPN’s Taylor McGregor following the dramatic 10–3 victory, Irvin came up from behind and planted a large kiss on the coach’s cheek, an immediately viral moment coming from the biggest win for Miami football in years.

Irvin has been a fixture at Hurricanes games during Cristobal’s tenure. While the two didn’t directly overlap as players at The U, they both experienced the program’s heyday in the 1980s and 90s, and Irving clearly believes that Cristobal is the man to bring the school back. During an appearance on ESPN’s Inside ACCess podcast with Andrea Adelson and David Hale, Irvin explained his outpouring of exuberance on national television.

Fischer: Mario Cristobal Built a Contender at Miami—Can He Coach It to a Title?

“I love coach, and I know he loves me,” Irvin said. “And we go so far back, coach called me at the beginning of last year and said, ‘We need you here, we’ve got young guys that are working hard. They need to know what it’s like to have to work hard and what’s required to get where we used to be.’ So he asked and I show up because he’s our coach.

“Everyone was ready to jump on my coach, on Mario Cristobal. Had he lost that game after Manny [Diaz] had won an ACC [championship], everyone would’ve doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. So when you stand in that kind of pressure situation and you go in facing 110,000 people against you—because they only gave us 3,000 tickets—you have to be prepared to withstand things. And he had that team prepared to withstand things.”

Irvin believes that other teams would have “folded” after the litany of miscues that Miami faced, between multiple missed field goals, the offense failing to score after Malachi Toney tripped on a potential punt return touchdown and other flubbed opportunities. Instead, the Hurricanes withstood the pressure and came out on top. He also cited the ACC championship win by former Miami coach Manny Diaz and Duke as an added bit of pressure on Cristobal, who replaced him ahead of the 2022 season.

“It was just a kiss for the sacrifices the man has made,” Irvin continued. “He had better offers, he had better opportunities, but this was home and he knew how much it meant to all of us and he showed up for us. Man, that’s a godfather kiss. ‘Yes, godfather,’ that’s what I was saying to coach.”

Mario Cristobal left Oregon to return to his alma mater Miami

Irvin referenced the “sacrifices” and “better offers” that Cristobal turned down to coach at Miami, likely referring to the job he left to take over at his alma mater—Oregon. Cristobal’s coaching journey to get back to The U as head coach was a long and winding one.

After a stint as an assistant for the Hurricanes in the mid-2000s, Cristobal took over nearby FIU in 2007, leading the nascent Panthers program which had played its first season just five years earlier. In 2010, he led FIU to a 7–6 record and a win in its first bowl game, and followed it with an 8–5 campaign, but was controversially fired after the Panthers slid back to 3–9 in ‘12.

He would join Nick Saban’s Alabama staff the following year, coaching offensive line and serving as run-game coordinator. He left for Oregon in 2017, serving as co-offensive coordinator under Willie Taggart, who famously left for Florida State at the end of his first season in Eugene. The Ducks quickly moved to name Cristobal as the program’s next head coach. He would post a 35–13 record at Oregon, topping out at 12–2 with a Rose Bowl win in 2019.

While most would probably rank Oregon, with its nearly endless Nike-backed resources, ahead of Miami as far as college football jobs go, Cristobal was drawn to the chance to turn around his alma mater and took the Hurricanes job ahead of the 2022 season. He’s taken some lumps, and has a pretty well-deserved reputation as a poor manager of late-game situations, but under his stewardship Miami has gotten closer to true national championship contention than it has been under the four other full-time coaches to lead the program since Larry Coker.

Cristobal is now 33–18 in four years at Miami and has the program’s first-ever College Football Playoff win.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Michael Irvin Explained ‘Godfather Kiss’ for Mario Cristobal After Miami Beat Texas A&M.

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