Michael Irvin hunched over, teeth clenched, ripping at the siren crank again and again as the frame shuddered on its base and the metal shrieked in protest. He yanked so ferociously that the handle nearly loosened from its attachment, the pitch slicing through Hard Rock Stadium.
Sebastian the Ibis was a storm of motion behind Irvin — feet squarely sown on the rain-slick grass, arms pumping relentlessly. His oversized head bobbed, the orange beak flapping as fans spun towels in manic circles.
As Irvin tore into his final pulls, his “Greentree Made Me” T-shirt clung heavily with rain and sweat. Behind him, Sebastian curled his arms tight above his shoulders, then dropped wide in a low, ironclad flex.
“It was electric,” said the student who performs as Sebastian, remaining anonymous publicly per long-held college mascot protocol. “There’s nothing like Hard Rock in general, and the stadium pulse was at maximum. It was the longest anybody had ever cranked it because he wanted to break it. … He just kept going and going, there was nothing like it. It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard Hard Rock.”
I CRANKED THAT SIREN @CanesFootball pic.twitter.com/kgWjY7dLPG
— Michael Irvin (@michaelirvin88) September 20, 2025
Irvin’s rendition of the Siren Crank quickly spilled past Hard Rock. On the mascot’s Instagram account, the video cleared 443,000 views in two days, the football program’s version drawing another 414,000. The comments were busy with punchlines — one reading, “I wish I loved something as much as Michael Irvin loves Miami football.”
“The U has been trying to get its swag back for a long time,” Sebastian’s performer said, “and Michael Irvin is one of the people who represents that swag.”
And after Miami’s 26-7 thumping Saturday of in-state rival Florida — hours after Irvin nearly ripped the siren crank out of its bolts — the Canes rocketed to No. 2 in the AP Poll, their highest mark in eight years. The same swagger Irvin draped in shoulder pads from 1985 to 1987, when Miami rattled off double-digit win seasons and bullied its way to the sport’s throne, is bleeding into Hard Rock.
So the Siren Crank tradition arrived as if on cue for Miami’s opener against Notre Dame — christened by Jimmy Johnson, the 52-9 architect behind the Canes’ swaggering “Decade of Dominance” stirring nostalgia. But Irvin pushed the ritual into myth on a night when a Hurricanes legend nearly dismantled the steel and whipped the stadium into delirium.
Jimmy Johnson was the head coach during Miami’s dynasty in the 1980s. (Courtesy of Miami Athletics)
But before Johnson or Irvin ever put their hands on it, the siren was just a doodle on a whiteboard in a “game-day experience” meeting this past summer. Marlon Clarke, Miami’s director of marketing and event experience, had watched a drummer hammer the crowd into rhythm at a Florida Panthers playoff game and wondered what could similarly animate Hard Rock Stadium.
A drum felt inadequate. Too neat, too polished. Miami, Clarke said, needed something wilder — something that cracked like thunder and rumbled like a storm. This wasn’t just any year, as it featured the school’s centennial, the program fresh off a 10-2 season with a No. 1 draft pick and coach Mario Cristobal entering year four with a roster all his own.
“We wanted the game-day experience, the energy around Miami Hurricanes football to reflect that,” said Daniel Toll, assistant director of marketing and production services. “We wanted to resemble the atmosphere we were so known for back in the early 2000s, the late ’80s, the ’90s.”
Miami’s answer came out of the desert. The Arizona Cardinals had a sideline contraption called the Big Red, and Clarke wanted its replica in Miami hues. He tracked down a local fabricator, handed over the sketches and waited a month while steel and wiring came together. When the crate arrived in Coral Gables, Fla., it stood six feet tall and gleamed with a split orange-and-green U.
After the first test, when Johnson wrapped his hands on the crank and sent a shriek bleeding through Hard Rock, a new ritual was born, one that now sets message boards buzzing each week with the same question: Who’s got the siren?
By Week 4, though, Irvin broke through the weekly guessing game, vowing on his podcast he’d break the siren when his turn came. And when it finally did, he was a man proving a prophecy true.
IMMA BREAK THAT SIREN @CanesFootball pic.twitter.com/mIcGyr5quX
— Michael Irvin (@michaelirvin88) September 19, 2025
“Michael Irvin dragged it out, like he knew what he was doing,” Toll said. “He came in with a mission, his animation, his body language. … People are saying that the real mascot of the University of Miami may not even be Sebastian. It might be Michael Irvin.”
But it wasn’t just theater. Before the Hall of Fame jacket, Irvin was Miami’s heartbeat — a record-setting wideout who helped deliver a 1987 title. He’s never really left The U, still prowling sidelines, crashing practices and hyping the Canes on national TV. He’s the alumni brotherhood in its loudest form, Toll said, one who engineered the dynasty and still insists on carrying its banner himself.
“Michael was our first choice, not knowing if he was going to say yes or no,” Clarke said. “But when he said he could do it, we said, ‘This is the perfect person for this environment.’ And he did it in a way that reflected the fans at the moment — high octane, high energy, over the top.”
And through it all, Sebastian was right there. The Hall of Fame mascot never needed words to hold Hard Rock — decades of sprinting after touchdowns, spelling out C-A-N-E-S with his body and throwing himself into skits. The bird played hype man Saturday, flapping in Irvin’s shadow.
“He is one of few mascots, in all of sports, that all 65,000 fans at Hard Rock Stadium are at his fingertips,” said Toll, who oversees content strategy for Miami’s mascot program on social media.
The ibis earned its place in Miami lore through old Florida folklore — the last bird to flee before a hurricane, the first to return when the storm passed. Survival and swagger wrapped into one made Sebastian a perfect presence alongside Irvin.
That legend has long since flown off the field. Kids stitch together homemade feathers and webbed oversized orange feet to trick-or-treat as Sebastian. Alumni pull on his likeness like armor on game days, the next of which for Miami is at No. 8 Florida State on Oct. 4.
“Having somebody like Michael Irvin with Sebastian standing next to him, egging him on, that helps people believe that The U is back,” Sebastian’s performer said. “That culture is something that made people hate to play us back in the day, and that’s what makes people hate to play us now.”
That was the magic: Irvin’s fury and Sebastian’s frenzy colliding, a storm swallowing 66,713 and shaking Hard Rock to its bones.
“Separately, they are iconic,” Clarke said. “And together, they were incredible together. This may not be the last time we see both of them doing something.”
(Top photo courtesy of Miami Athletics)
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