5: Mario Cristobal
Ever since The U had its second renaissance in the early part of the 21st Century, the program has constantly tried to return back amongst the nation’s elite. After mixed results under Manny Diaz, the Hurricanes turned to one of its own, Mario Cristobal, to fix the Hurricanes.
Cristobal was seen as a fast riser, becoming an ace recruiter at the University of Alabama under Nick Saban, and was recognized by 247 Sports as the Recruiter of the Year in 2015. He subsequently went to Oregon, where he guided the Ducks to two Pac-12 Conference Championships and a pair of New Year’s Six bowl berths.
Year 1 for Cristobal at his alma mater left a lot to be desired, where the Hurricanes finished with a 5-7 record with an offense that finished 97th in the nation in scoring. Most prognosticators entered the 2022 season having Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke has a potential Heisman finalist, especially after being paired with offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, who won the Broyles Award for the nation’s top assistant coordinating Michigan’s offense in 2021. That clearly did not happen.
This offseason on the recruiting front, Cristobal landed a major coup landing five-star offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa to help fortify his offensive line, something that has been a staple of his as an assistant at Alabama and head coach at Orgeon. But Cristobal still is trying to figure out the mass exodus of high-end talent leaving “The State of Miami.” The notable misses for the Hurricanes were five-star Lakeland High School cornerback Cormani McClain who followed Deion Sanders to Colorado, and four-star Gulliver Prep wide receiver Jalen Brown who signed with LSU.
Cristobal enters the 2023 with a career record exactly at .500 (67-67 overall), and he seems to have maxed out the equity from that 2019 Oregon team that won the Rose Bowl and Pac-12 Championship.
Make no mistake – Miami won’t make the College Football Playoff. But the fans demand an improvement, and the ‘Canes at least have a manageable schedule in their favor. The only tough road game before November is at North Carolina. However, they finish 2023 with three of four games on the road visiting Florida State, North Carolina State, and Boston College.
More Sports News
Setting the tone early will be key for Cristobal, who can ill afford another losing season but will be analyzed and scrutinized heavily by the fans of The U and the media at large if not enough progress is achieved.
4: Brent Venables
The way Lincoln Riley departed from Oklahoma will always have strong sentiments from Sooners fans. But even those who have reconciled and come to grips with the fact that Riley is no longer there still maintain a higher standard that current head coach Brent Venables failed to attain last season.
In Venables’ defense, he inherited a gutted cupboard where the key differentiator in quarterback Caleb Williams hit the transfer portal and landed at Southern California, leaving the Sooners without that impact playmaker who masqueraded for a lot of deficiencies on both sides of the ball.
Venables oversaw the worst shutout loss not only in the series of the Red River Rivalry but the worst shutout loss in program history. It was Oklahoma’s first losing season since the end of the John Blake days in Norman back in 1998.
While a lot was stacked against Venables in Year 1, Year 2 seems to be more promising as the foundation of his program has a year of his system under the belt.
Additionally, Venables has been aggressively recruiting for Oklahoma. He finished his first full recruiting cycle ranked No. 6 overall per 247 Sports, highlighted by a trio of five-stars. They include a duo from Guyer HS in Denton, Texas, in quarterback Jackson Arnold and defensive back Peyton Bowen. The third five-star recruit was edge rusher Adepoju Adebawore. Three other highly coveted recruits — defensive lineman Derrick Leblanc, defensive back Makari Vickers, and offensive lineman Cayden Green — also look to be cornerstone pieces for Venables’ program moving forward.
Oklahoma hasn’t slowed down at all in the 2024 cycle either. The Sooners seem to be the favorite to land the top two defensive lineman in this year’s class in five-stars Williams Nwaneri from Lee’s Summitt, Missouri, and David Stone from the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
The other thing that has helped Venables is that Jeff Lebby stayed at Oklahoma after being seen by many experts as a legitimate candidate for several head coaching vacancies. The continuity in the offense will also help returning senior Dillon Gabriel hopefully stave off competition from Arnold, who will be the quarterback of the future for the Sooners.
What Oklahoma fans seek this season is to see the team take a significant next step as the SEC is beckoning ahead of the 2024 season. Over the next few seasons, Venables will be under the microscope, as Oklahoma will have a target on their back both this year in their final season in the Big XII as well as next year in the SEC. How Venables gets Oklahoma prepared for this will ultimately determine his fate in Norman.
3: Jimbo Fisher (and Bobby Petrino)
It really didn’t help Jimbo Fisher last May when he went off on Nick Saban after Saban was critical of how Fisher landed his historic Class of 2022 recruiting haul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-DXTj1QoY
The thing Fisher failed to realize in his rant is that when a university is paying you over $100 million in the lifetime of your contract, the demand is excellence and winning championships. What Fisher has failed to achieve in College Station is winning any significant championship.Last season’s epic collapse on all fronts shines a brighter light on Fisher if he is the right man to achieve what Texas A&M is paying for.
One of the more significant moves Fisher made this offseason was relinquishing the offensive coordinator duties. To take over play-calling duties and coordinate the offense, the Aggies brought in Bobby Petrino.
Petrino is most recently was head coach at FCS Missouri State, where he guided the Bears to an 18-15 record and consecutive NCAA FCS first round playoff exits. The knock on Petrino while he displayed being an offensive genius in the 2000’s with his innovative Louisville teams with quarterback Brian Brohm and running back Michael Bush a field goal away against Rutgers in 2006 from potentially playing for the national championship.
After leaving Louisville for the Atlanta Falcons, the realization he wouldn’t have Michael Vick at quarterback, who was dealing with legal trouble of his own, gave Petrino second thoughts, and left the Falcons high and dry with a “Dear John” letter.
His Arkansas tenure looked promising up until the motorcycle incident with a football staffer, leaving a lot questions about the situation that eventually saw his time in Fayetteville end abruptly.
Over the past decade, Petrino-led teams (outside of Lamar Jackson‘s time in Louisville) have left a lot to be desired. With so much riding on the line, the chemistry of Fisher and Petrino will be one most will be following closely as how both develop former five-star quarterback Connor Weigman.
2: Nick Saban’s Coordinators at Alabama
The rest of the college football universe, outside of Georgia, would love to have the “first world” problems Alabama has.
Last season, the much-maligned offensive and defensive coordinators Bill O’Brien and Pete Golding were basically criticized week after week after failing to deliver a national championship the previous season. Every week, it seemed the fans were firing either O’Brien or Golding, if not both. But their bodies of work leave us all scratching our collective heads.
O’Brien was offensive coordinator for two seasons. During that time, he had an offense that finished no lower than sixth nationally in scoring offense and oversaw the development of Bryce Young, who won the Heisman Trophy and every major award in 2021. A major criticism in O’Brien’s first year was Alabama didn’t run the effectively, and O’Brien was able to craft the offense to improve from just over 150 yards per game and 4.1 yards per rush in 2021 to 195.5 yards per game on the ground and 5.6 yards per rush.
The Alabama faithful celebrated following the Sugar Bowl when the news broke that O’Brien would return to the NFL with the New England Patriots.
On the defensive side of the ball, Golding had the unenviable task of following two extremely popular defensive coordinators in Tuscaloosa, Kirby Smart and Jeremy Pruitt. Both went on to take head coaching jobs in the SEC at Georgia and Tennessee respectively.
While Golding’s defense “struggled” in 2019, they finished in the top 25 in total defense (21st) and scoring defense (13th). Over the next three seasons, Golding’s defense finished ranked No. 13th, 18th, and 9th in scoring defense and in the Top 10 in rush defense in 2021 and Top 20 in total defense in each of those seasons.
The head-scratcher is none of these were “good enough,” and Golding left for the same position at Ole Miss this offseason.
Replacing O’Brien and Golding this season are former Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and former Miami defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, who was Nick Saban’s first defensive coordinator at Alabama in 2007-08 and was Alabama’s Director of Player Personnel and linebackers coach between 2013-14.
Rees has always been under the microscope at Notre Dame since becoming quarterbacks coach under former head coach Brian Kelly in 2017. It was almost seen as a stunner that Rees was a candidate for the job. Taking the job has brought a lot of curiosity and speculation as to what Saban sees in the much-maligned coordinator.
With all the talent Alabama has offensively, Rees’ skills will be under the microscope more than his defensive counterpart.
Steele is a veteran defensive coach entering his fifth decade in coaching. He was part of Nebraska’s 1994 national championship team as a linebackers coach and has coached at Alabama, Miami, LSU, Clemson, Florida State, and Tennessee throughout his long career. Most see Steele as a safe pick by Saban who will bring that gritty edge most felt was missing in Golding’s time as coordinator.
Needless to say, all eyes will be on the Alabama coordinators.
1. The Losing Coach of “The Game”
For the first time in a generation, the tables have turned for the combatants in The Game. The Ohio State Buckeyes have lost two in a row to Michigan for the first time since the 1999-2000 games, and questions are now starting to mount for coach Ryan Day.
Early in Day’s tenure, he benefitted from the culture and players previous head coach Urban Meyer built in Columbus, where defeating “The Team Up North” was paramount. Former Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud, who very well could end up the number one overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, and was a two-time Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, is seen by many Ohio State fans as a “failure” because he never beat Michigan.
This fall, Day will turn to either junior Kyle McCord or sophomore Devin Brown to turn the tide in the rivalry. Whoever wins the quarterback battle will be supported on offense by one of the best wide receiver units in the country, led by redshirt sophomore Marvin Harrison Jr., who may be the best wide receiver in the country.
Defensively, the Buckeyes will rely on former five-star defensive lineman Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau, potential Butkus finalist Tommy Eichenberg, and stud corners Denzel Burke and Jyaire Brown to avenge being manhandled by a physical Wolverines offensive who had over 250 yards rushing and 500 yards of total offense against the Buckeyes.
The last Ohio State coach to lose three in a row to Michigan was John Cooper between 1995-1997. Day can ill afford the same fate in the eyes of the Buckeye faithful.
While momentum seems to favor Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, winning two in a row against Ohio State, back-to-back Big Ten Championships, and appearances in the College Football Playoff, he is still 2-5 overall against Ohio State.
The Wolverines return the two-headed running back monster in Heisman finalist Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, who led a ground attack that averaged 238.9 yards per game last season. Even in defeat in the College Football Playoff Semifinal against TCU, quarterback JJ McCarthy looked like he had taken the next step in his development and could be a difference-maker for the Wolverines instead of a game manager.
While the Wolverines’ postseason woes now plague Harbaugh, he cannot overlook the Buckeyes, and a win in Ann Arbor this year will make things uncomfortable for Day in Columbus. Conversely, if Ohio State is able to beat Michigan in Ann Arbor, depending on how Michigan’s season goes, questions could circulate if Harbaugh can truly dominate the rivalry that defines both programs.
Whoever loses The Game is under constant barrage of criticism and questioning, and it is unlike any in the country.
