$8.3 Million Head Coach Claps Back at Kirby Smart Over Tampering Jab

Miami finished the 2025 campaign 13–3, entered the College Football Playoff as the No. 10 seed, and upset higher-ranked opponents, including Texas A&M and defending champion Ohio State, en route to a national championship game appearance.

Despite fielding one of the country’s stingiest defenses, the Canes fell 27–21 to Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium, as the Hoosiers captured their first national championship in program history.

Head coach Mario Cristobal’s postseason run with Miami nevertheless dominated the 2025 college football conversation and later spilled into a public exchange with Kirby Smart at the Steve Spurrier First Year Coach Award ceremony.

Cristobal quipped about what “a player like Carson Beck can do with great coaching” as the camera panned to Smart, a pointed nod to Beck’s transfer from the Georgia Bulldogs and his immediate impact at Miami.

The remark followed Smart’s earlier joke about Cristobal sitting too close to Georgia cornerback Ellis Robinson IV, suggesting tongue-in-cheek potential tampering.

Beck’s transfer became a defining storyline of Miami’s 2025 season. The veteran quarterback threw for 3,813 yards and 30 touchdowns while completing 72.4% of his passes, a top-five national mark, reinforcing the narrative that Cristobal’s staff could accelerate a rebuild through the portal, even as Beck’s NIL valuation reportedly climbed into the $4–6 million range.

Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal. — Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal before the College Football Playoff National Championship game | Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Cristobal’s coaching résumé spans his time as a former Miami player and assistant, followed by stops at Rutgers, FIU, and Alabama, and a high-profile run at Oregon before he returned in 2021 to lead the Hurricanes as a culture-reset hire.

After consecutive rebuilding seasons, 5–7 in 2022 and 7–6 in 2023, followed by a 10–3 step forward in 2024, his tenure culminated in a 2025 breakthrough: a program-record 13 wins, a deep College Football Playoff run, and a national championship berth.

Cristobal signed a 10-year, $80 million contract upon his return, one of the largest deals in college football at the time. Now averaging roughly $8.3 million annually, the agreement underscored Miami’s long-term commitment to a full-scale rebuild.

Smart’s Bulldogs, meanwhile, finished 12–2 in 2025, captured the SEC title, and reached the CFP, a strong season that largely met expectations but ultimately fell short of a national championship.

While Georgia maintained conference supremacy, Miami’s transfer-driven surge generated more late-season momentum and a bigger national spotlight.

So, Cristobal’s response to Smart, referencing Carson Beck’s success after transferring from Georgia, doubled as both a personal jab and a pointed reminder of how that portal move paid off on the sport’s biggest stage.

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