Mario Cristobal, Miami reach agreement on contract extension: Source

The University of Miami and head football coach Mario Cristobal have agreed to a long-term contract extension, a source with knowledge of negotiations confirmed Monday. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been finalized.

The length of the extension and the money involved were not disclosed. As a private school, Miami will not have to make Cristobal’s contract public. On3 was first to report the agreement.

The Hurricanes are 35-19 in four seasons under Cristobal and are coming off a 13-3 campaign in which they advanced to the College Football Playoff championship game as a No. 10 seed, where they lost to top-seeded Indiana, 27-21.

Miami has yet to hire an athletic director since Dan Radakovich retired on June 1. Whoever gets the job is expected to work primarily in a revenue-growth capacity, giving Cristobal plenty of freedom to run the program his way.

The Athletic learned that four candidates are being brought in for in-person meetings following the first round of interviews. Miami hired Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to run the search and is prioritizing veterans from the professional sports world.

Cristobal signed a 10-year, $80 million deal when he was first hired at Miami in December 2021. Top-paid coaches in college football like Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti and LSU’s Lane Kiffin make around $13 million a year.

Cristobal is 15-14 against ranked opponents after he left his post as Nick Saban’s assistant at Alabama and became the head coach at Oregon at the end of the 2017 season. He left Oregon for Miami ahead of the 2022 season.

He is 57-21 while coaching a ranked team, but 11 of those losses — at least one in each of the past eight seasons — have come against unranked opponents.

Cristobal also spent six seasons as the head coach at Florida International, going 27-47 from 2007 to 2012.