Dynamic date in footer

Hi,
I just purchased this theme while waiting for the release of BlackFyre (which I registered to help test) and have some questions/need help that I knew I would need prior to purchase.

I’d like to change the copyright in the footer to use the php date function.

When I go to change the footer and put in <?php echo date("Y") ?> for the year, nothing happens.

Any idea how to include php functions in the footer? (I tried adding a function in functions.php and calling that as well but that didn’t work either).

Thank you in advance,
CS