By Scott Salomon
College football is on Hurricane Warning.
Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel should be here any day projecting the storm’s path and how it is going to blow through the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Miami Hurricanes are fighting and clawing their way back to not only relevancy, but they look like they are going to be taking the ACC by storm.
Mario Cristobal, Miami’s second-year head coach, is winning the battles on the recruiting trail and on the gridiron. His Hurricanes are not only winning, but they are winning big. When Cristobal’s teams win big, he turns into a mad scientist, and he can get very scary.
He proved it when he was running the offense and recruiting for Nick Saban at Alabama. He came into South Florida, flashing his national championship rings and plucked blue-chip players like Jerry Jeudy and Calvin Ridley from the clutches of the local schools and brought them to Tuscaloosa. They are now playing on Sunday.
After Cristobal went to Oregon, he still showed his magic in recruiting and won two PAC-12 titles. The bottom line is that he gets the players that he wants, wherever they are from, as long as his teams are winning.
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The fly in the ointment last season was that Miami was not winning, but they still ended up with a top 10 recruiting class that featured blue chippers Francis Mauigoa, Samson Okunlola, and Reuben Bain. Sprinkle in four-star offensive playmakers like Mark Fletcher, Jr., Riley Williams, and Nathaniel “Ray-Ray Joseph, and you have a very formidable class.
Cristobal had Josh Gattis running the offense and Kevin Steele serving as defensive coordinator last season, and that did not generate too much excitement in Coral Gables. It certainly did not strike fear in their opponents. Gattis’ offense was too vanilla and did not play to the team’s strengths, and Steele’s zone defense could not stop a high school team.
After a 5-7 season, both were dismissed, and in came Shannon Dawson from Houston and Lance Guidry from Louisiana to run the respective units. Cristobal even won the coordinator recruiting war, bringing in two of the best in the nation.
“We invade Louisiana and extracted a couple of guys that are difference makers as people…If you are that and you have such a high level of knowledge, that’s a powerful combination.”
—Mario Cristobal on cooridnators Shannon Dawson & Lance Guidry
That is when Miami turned from a weak-forming Tropical Storm to a full-fledged Category Five Hurricane.
“We made a decision that as the season goes on, we’re just going to keep getting better and better and better,” Cristobal said. “That means we’re going to have to push. The schedule changes, but it doesn’t matter. [The] ball’s going to be placed on the tee Thursday night and kicked off. The approach has been simple. It’s been identifying those things that are hurting us, the ways we’re hurting ourselves, things we can get better at, things we’re really close at being really good at as well.
“It’s a complete assault on improvement and [getting] better. There’s certainly a strong appetite for betterment and improvement. That’s how we’re approaching it.”
That is scary news for the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Fresh off of a 48-33 victory over then 23rd ranked Texas A&M, the Canes showed their moxie and power in overcoming a 17-7 deficit before storming back to win behind five touchdown passes from Tyler Van Dyke who is known in South Florida simply as Tyler Van Dyme.
“Tonight (Shannon Dawson) had a chance to prove it,” Cristobal said. “He proved that he’s an elite person.”
Miami fans are used to the Hurricanes squandering late leads by playing conservatively in the fourth quarter. Dawson said that he might be ridiculed for Miami’s last score late in the game, but that he believes in keeping his foot on the gas. He said that if you play conservatively, you play to lose.
“I’m going to keep attacking,” Dawson said after the game. “When you get conservative, you get beat so we’re not going to do that.”
After the game, with the offensive display, Cristobal put the recruits on notice that this is where they want to be. Miami had over 100 blue chip recruits at The Rock, and they witnessed Cristobal’s first signature win as Canes head coach.
“Recruits that were in wait-and-see mode,” Cristobal said. “Well, they got to see a big step.”
Van Dyke concurred and agrees with his coach on the need to keep winning and silencing their critics.
“When we came in on Sunday, you could tell we won, but it was very professional in the way we moved on from it. Obviously, it feels really good to get in there with a win and everybody was in a good, positive mood. But nobody was like, ‘Okay, let’s go, season’s over. We just won the national championship,’” Van Dyke said. “It wasn’t like that at all. We know we have 10 games left, plus hopefully a couple more. We know we have to focus on the next game at hand, the next practice at hand. So, I think a lot of the guys handled their business as a professional would.”
Miami plays Bethune-Cookman tonight at Hard Rock Stadium, and the Canes look to leave nothing but debris in their way as they blowout their formidable opponent that held Savannah State to just 80 rushing yards last week.
“We’re trying to win every week, but once that week’s over, we’re 0-0 and the goal now is to go 1-0 this week,” said Miami defensive back Jaden Davis. “Bethune-Cookman is a remarkable opponent. … They have a great team. They have a great group of receivers coming in here and for me, playing the defensive back position, that’s what I’m worried about. But their receivers, their quarterback, their running backs, and offensive line, they do a great job with their schematics and how they do everything. So, we’ve been coming in here every day, working towards that. With it being a short week, we know we had to get up on the game plan, do extra film and extra work. I’m just happy to get back on that field this week.”
