By Scott Salomon
Somewhere near the Little Havana section of Miami, there is a Cuban football coach named Mario Cristobal, sipping his cafecito, eating pastelitos, and grinning from ear to ear. Cristobal spent considerable time and effort to recruit former five-star cornerback Cormani McClain, who was from Lakeland, Florida, some four hours from the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus.
McClain was the best player to come out in 2023 and he was a Miami commit right up until Early National Signing Day in December 2022. He spurned the Hurricanes and signed with Colorado, leaving an empty spot in Miami’s secondary and much-heralded seventh-ranked recruiting class.
When it came time for McClain to sign his National Letter of Intent to play for the Hurricanes, he was a no-show. There was an empty chair at the table with a placard with McClain’s name on it, a Miami National Letter of Intent, and an Orange and Green cake that was to be devoured by McClain and his family.
The cake would ultimately get thrown out and McClain would drag Cristobal and the Hurricanes down the road for two months before he signed with Coach Prime and the University of Colorado. The flip left a huge hole in Miami’s secondary.
On Tuesday, McClain ended the Coach Prime experiment and stated that he will enter his name in the transfer portal. This culminated weeks of speculation and rumors that McClain was going to leave Boulder and take his multi-dimensional talents somewhere else.
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Last season, when McClain, was riding the bench and being mocked by Coach Prime for supposedly not putting in the work and effort necessary to see the field, I predicted that McClain would eventually hit the portal.
There was an obvious disconnect somewhere as the best high school player in the country in 2023 never found his gold in Colorado and only cracked the lineup when Travis Hunter, the 2022 top recruit and fellow cornerback, was injured and missed several games with a lacerated liver.
McClain ended up starting only four games during his freshman season at Colorado.
After starting for Colorado against the Arizona Wildcats later in the season, McClain was praised by Prime for understanding the expectations that come with being a player worthy enough to start for the Buffaloes.
“He’s been a lot more focused,” Prime said after the loss to Arizona. “A lot more understanding of the expectation and what we want from him — that we’ve challenged him tremendously all year long. He stood up to the task over the last, probably, week and a half. I’m really, really proud of Cormani. I really am.”
McClain was supposedly the biggest recruiting coup for Prime last season, who does not recruit high school players very well. Initially, he was projected to start on opening day opposite Hunter. It was supposed to be a dream tandem in the making and they were going to be coached by Prime, who wears a gold jacket and a ring from his induction and membership in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
It never happened and it looks like it never will.
The only question that remains is whether McClain mends fences with Cristobal and joins the Hurricanes? Don’t count on it.
