<\/p>\n
Miami Hurricanes tight ends coach Mike Viti speaks to reporters after practice on Thursday, April 2, 2026, inside the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables, Florida.<\/p>\n
Jordan McPherson<\/p>\n
jmcpherson@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
In between his stints playing college football for Army and beginning a coaching career that has spanned more than a decade at this point \u2014 all at his alma mater before joining the Miami Hurricanes this offseason \u2014 Mike Viti served in combat.<\/p>\n
Most notably, he was deployed as a platoon leader in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom from 2010-2011. He earned a Bronze Star and a Combat Action Badge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in the Taliban stronghold,\u201d Viti, now the tight ends coach at Miami, said Thursday. \u201cFor me, it was the most honorable year in my life. To serve with America\u2019s best, to take care of people who can\u2019t necessarily protect themselves, was a great responsibility, and that\u2019s really where I felt everything in my life, whether it was through classical academic settings, military vignettes and certainly sport, which I think is the ultimate proving ground for leadership, regardless of the industry, it all came to fruition. And you know, as a 23, 24-year-old, life gets real really fast, and you realize the importance of preparation. You realize the importance of decision-making, emotional control, leadership. All those things come to life every single moment, every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat man\u2019s a war hero,\u201d Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. \u201cI mean, he\u2019s done things that none of us could ever even fathom. Indebted to him for his service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Viti, 40, takes the mindset and principles he learned while serving and applies them into his job as a coach.<\/p>\n
He spent the past decade at his alma mater, first serving as Army\u2019s fullbacks coach from 2016-2021 before becoming the Black Knights\u2019 offensive line coach from 2022-2025. He was the school\u2019s director of high school and alumni relations in 2015, named the American Football Coaches Association\u2019s Assistant Coach of the Year in 2019 and awarded the Football Writers Association of America\u2019s Armed Forces Merit Award, which is presented annually to honor an individual and\/or group with a military background that has an impact within the realm of college football, during that 2019 season.<\/p>\n
Now, he is working at Miami, where he is replacing Cody Woodiel, who left for Ole Miss, on Cristobal\u2019s staff. Viti said the excitement of what\u2019s happening with the Hurricanes, who reached the College Football Playoff National Championship Game last season, made the opportunity to come to Coral Gables an enticing one.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at Miami, and I would argue that nobody\u2019s doing it at a higher level right now,\u201d Viti said. \u201cYou look at a leader like coach Cristobal, who\u2019s coaching at his alma mater, and to me that was intriguing. And you come down here and you can feel it. You can feel that the frontier of college football lives here. And that\u2019s hard not to say yes to, it\u2019s hard not to be attracted to. So I would make the argument just the leaving part wasn\u2019t so hard, but it was the excitement of what\u2019s next and what you can accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for how serving in the military prepared Viti for being a coach?<\/p>\n
\u201cService is leading,\u201d Viti said. \u201cIt\u2019s servant-minded business, but it\u2019s technical skill acquisition and implementation, and really the parallels to football and being an officer and coaching and being an elite teacher are all pretty similar, and I found that just to be true through my time at Army. And certainly here, it\u2019s learning a new system, it\u2019s cultural, it\u2019s the silver accord amongst all of us, and how to connect people and emotionally drive them and move them. So I think there\u2019s a lot of really good things to pull from there, but I would argue that every really, really good coach would make a really, really good officer, and vice versa. So I found that just to be true through my time as a coach and certainly as an officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Viti is excited about the challenge ahead. He is coaching the position group on Miami\u2019s roster that has \u201cmaybe the most room to grow on the entire team,\u201d Viti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited about that,\u201d Viti said.<\/p>\n
Elija Lofton, heading into his junior year, is the only player with significant experience in the room. He played in 28 games over the past two seasons and has 32 catches for 368 yards and four touchdowns. Injuries limited him as a sophomore last season when he was supposed to become Miami\u2019s primary tight end after being used in select packages as a freshman.<\/p>\n
Behind Lofton are rising sophomore Luka Gilbert, redshirt junior Jackson Carver and freshmen Israel Briggs and Gavin Mueller.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the ceiling of the room,\u201d Viti said. \u201cI love the development side of it. To me, that\u2019s where I feel I\u2019m talented. But I look at the guys. They\u2019re just as hungry. … We\u2019re starting this journey together.\u201d<\/p>\n