The Mind of Mike is a crazy place. Should we be worried about Mario Cristobal and Miami?
The answer is nope. Not for a second. Yes, I know things look kinda crappy right now. Miami has lost to an FCS team, lost to a Texas A&M team that we know isn’t good, couldn’t score more than 24 against a horrible UNC defense and barely beat the worst Virginia Tech team we’ve seen in ages. 3-3 is not what the fan base expected. But as we know, fan bases aren’t rational.
Cristobal left a good program at Oregon that he built up to a shoddy Miami program with many holes. There’s a reason the Canes were coming off a 7-5 season with losses to average teams like Virginia, UNC, and Florida State. This was a team that lacked talent along the offensive and defensive lines, lacked speed and skill at wide receiver, and had holes in the secondary and at linebacker. Tyler Van Dyke was a very solid quarterback, they had depth at running back and there were a few elite players coming back at certain positions. But this was – and is – not the Miami roster Cristobal envisions in a few years after he recruits there. Not even close.
Charleston Rambo was the top receiver for Miami a season ago. He’s gone and wouldn’t even crack the lineup on the teams Cristobal played on back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The best receiver this season heading into the year? Xavier Restrepo, who was injured early. My point? Cristobal was around amazing rosters at The U when they dominated college football. He didn’t expect to arrive to have Andre Johnson, Santana Moss, and others on the roster, but even by today’s standards, the cupboard is a bit bare.
Cristobal did a good job filling in some gaps along the defensive line and at linebacker with players like Akheem Mesidor, Darrell Jackson, and Caleb Johnson (depth player) and added help at running back with Henry Parrish who has been solid, but the portal isn’t the fix needed here at Miami. This will take time and three recruiting cycles. His first full recruiting year, the 2023 class, is off to an amazing start and is top 10 nationally with ease. We all know from his days at Alabama and Oregon that the man can recruit. The roster talent will improve exponentially in a few years.
The jury is out on the hire of offensive coordinator Josh Gattis and defensive coordinator Kevin Steele and with added talent changes could be made down the line. In this day and age, coaching movement just happens so the current staff and questions about certain coaches aren’t a concern to me. It honestly all comes down to one question — is Cristobal a good enough coach?
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My answer is yes, but there are many detractors. Most of them wear green and yellow and are butthurt he left Oregon. To be fair, some losses in his Ducks tenure (Oregon State, Stanford, and Cal in his final two seasons) did raise some eyebrows. Is Cristobal, a former offensive lineman, too conservative as a coach when it comes to philosophy on that side of the ball? Some say yes. Can he recruit and build up an SEC-type of physical defense at Miami like he hoped to and fell short of at Oregon? Some say no. But let’s be clear. The man was 35-13 at Oregon with a couple of PAC 12 titles and he beat Ohio State on the road. The resume is there, the recruiting ground is futile and as we see many other big hires struggling and we wonder if they are in over their head, rest assured that Cristobal is right where he wants and needs to be.
