Alex Mirabal met with the VIQTORY Football Coaching Podcast to go in depth on his coaching philosophies. A transcript of the interview is below:
VIQTORY Coaching: All right, we have Coach Alex Mirabal with us. Coach, a fun fact I found out about you: you and Coach Cristobal were teammates in high school. Is that correct?
Alex Mirabal: Yeah. We became teammates in 1984 at Christopher Columbus High School and played four years together there. And now, what, 38, 39 years later, we’re still hanging out. We’re still teammates. He’s the head coach, I’m the assistant coach. But yeah—May of 1984 during spring football practice, that’s when we met. We kind of hit it off, built a friendship, and we’ve known each other ever since.
VIQTORY Coaching: I love that. I was doing my homework on you and came across that tidbit—really cool that you guys stayed connected this entire time. Before we get into the offensive line stuff, we do a quick intro. If you don’t mind: introduce yourself, and I want you to brag on yourself a little with all the success you’ve had.
Alex Mirabal: My name is Alex Mirabal. I’m currently the offensive line coach at the University of Miami. I’m entering my 19th season as a college coach after 16 years as a teacher and a football and track coach in high school. I’ve been very blessed with the opportunities I’ve been given in my life—not only as a high school teacher and coach, but now as a college teacher and coach.
And I think a lot of times… if anybody ever talks about me, I would love for them to describe me as a teacher. That’s the greatest compliment anybody could ever give me: “He was a great teacher,” or “He tried to be a great teacher.”
VIQTORY Coaching: I want to dive into that. And before we get fully into the line play—this is going to be offensive line focused—I want to talk about your journey, because you took a non-traditional route. You started at Columbus, you were a high school football coach, a track and field coach. You’re one of us—high school coaches. You didn’t do the traditional GA route. Can you talk about how you went from volunteer coaching all the way to your first college job at FIU?
Alex Mirabal: Yeah. So when I got out of high school, news flash—I’m not very tall, right? So I never played in college. But I stayed connected to football while I was in college. My old high school coach and my old high school offensive line coach asked, “Hey, do you want to volunteer?” So I did.
I would volunteer on game day—be “eye in the sky” in the press box on game day. After a year or two, I thought, “Man, that’s pretty cool. I’d like to dive further into it.” So then it became: I had a job while I was going to college, but maybe I could skip out and go once or twice to practice during the week and still do game day.
Well, once or twice during the week became every day. And then it became, “Hey—this is what I want to do.” I want to do what these high school coaches and teachers are doing—which is affecting and impacting lives on a daily basis.
So I went and studied, became a social studies education major, and I taught American History and U.S. Government for 16 years. Loved every minute of it. And I’m as passionate about teaching that as I am about teaching offensive line play.
I taught five periods a day—five out of six—and after school you have another three “periods” of football, right? Three hours of practice.
I was blessed: my head high school football coach—Dennis Lavelle—was also the guy I first started to work for. Phenomenal math teacher. And he told me early on, “Don’t ever let them take you out of the classroom.”
And I asked, “Coach, why?”
He said, “Because all you’re doing when you’re teaching—math, history, English, science—whatever—is practicing communicating. Getting information from you to students. From you to players.” He also said as a teacher, you impact so many people beyond just players. And as a football coach, you impact the school community.
I always took that to heart. Every time I taught American History or U.S. Government, I felt like I was practicing coaching. And anytime I was coaching, I was practicing becoming a better teacher.
So I did that for 16 years. Then January 1st, 2007 was my first year as a college coach. And I wasn’t trying to become a college coach—it kind of happened.
Coach Cristobal became the head football coach at Florida International University and asked me, “Hey, will you come with me?”
And I said, “I wasn’t really planning on getting into college coaching. I’ve got a good life. My wife’s a teacher, I’m a teacher. You get similar times off, all that stuff.” But we didn’t have to move the family, so my wife and I decided: let’s do it.
For six years I was at FIU with Coach Cristobal. Then we got fired—which happens. December 6th or 7th of 2012. I was going to go right back into high school.
And my wife said, “Hey, we don’t have to go back to high school if you don’t want to. We could stay in college.”
I said, “If we go on this college deal now, we’re in that carousel.” Moving, moving, moving.
She said, “If we have an opportunity, let’s do it.”
So February 2013, I interview and become the offensive line coach at Marshall with Doc Holliday. I got that opportunity because Marshall’s offensive coordinator at the time—Bill Legg, a dear friend—had been with us at FIU. He said, “We have an opening.” Boom. Went and interviewed.
We go up to Huntington, West Virginia for five seasons. And my wife moved us up there. And I always say this: I’ve never moved. My wife and my kids have moved. Because the burden falls on them.
I always go ahead. I get to Huntington in February, I’m recruiting, I’m doing spring ball—while my wife is finishing the school year teaching, my boys finishing their year at school. She’s the one packing the house, handling all that.
So I’ve never moved. She’s moved—three times. Because I’m always ahead.
We were there five years, then Coach Cristobal gets the head job at Oregon and asks us to go to Eugene. We did. Again—burden on my wife and kids.
When the moving truck got there, they’re at the house helping movers unpack and I’m literally at a spring scrimmage with the Ducks at a local high school. That’s the behind-the-scenes.
If you want to be successful as a college coach, your home is the key. I don’t know how guys do it where they coach and their family stays behind. I could never do that.
Then Coach had the opportunity to come home to Miami—which is my home too—and asked me to come. Again: I’m at the Alamo Bowl with Oregon playing Oklahoma, and my wife and kids don’t come. She flies to Miami to look for a home for us. Again—on them.
VIQTORY Coaching: That actually answers something I was going to ask: the hardest part going from high school to college. Football is football, ball is ball—but outside the field, that transition is huge.
Alex Mirabal: The most anxious days I’ve had as a college coach were my son’s first day of school in Huntington, my son’s first day of school in Eugene, and my son’s first day of school back in Miami.
Ask any college coach—they’ll tell you the same thing. That’s what we’re worried about. Once that first day happens and they’re like, “Dad, it was awesome,” the stress is gone.
Most of it falls on our wives—steadying the family, being the rock.
And people ask me all the time, “Do you miss teaching?” What do you mean do I miss teaching? I do it every day.
And honestly, it bothers me sometimes that people don’t view coaches as teachers. That’s what we are.
I have a classroom now—it’s called the offensive line room. But it’s a classroom. We’ve got whiteboards, video, and I’ll get 50 to 55 minutes of class time just like American History and U.S. Government. Then we go apply it outside.
And I think when people start viewing coaches as teachers, the profession keeps climbing. That’s why you see so many former high school coaches succeed at college—they’ve written lesson plans, they understand classroom management. Classroom management is keeping them on task. Idle hands, right? Keep them busy. When the O-line walks in my room, I’m ripping. I don’t give them downtime. Same as a classroom.
And when I jumped from high school to college, it took very little time to realize: they’re just 13th grade, 14th grade, 15th grade. Don’t treat them like pros because they’re not pros. They’re young men.
We had four O-linemen start with us who should have still been in high school. So I’ve got to bring structure—how to wake up, attendance, all that—because they’re away from mom and dad for the first time. I become that surrogate parent.
If you treat it like an extension of high school, you’ll be all right. If you treat them like pros, that’s where you get caught.
VIQTORY Coaching: I think that’s why you’ve had so much success. You don’t coach everybody like a dictator. You coach the 13th grader different from the veteran who’s about to be drafted.
Alex Mirabal: Coaching and teaching is an art, not a science. Every guy is a different canvas. It’s up to you to help him through his journey.
That’s what we do. That’s what I love. I like recruiting, but the reason I coach is because I get to teach.
VIQTORY Coaching: Let’s stick on recruiting for a second. You’re arguably one of the best recruiters out there. When you walk into a home of an offensive lineman—what are you looking for beyond height and weight? Bend? Measurables? Football IQ? What stands out?
Alex Mirabal: To me, you start with the cover—even though people say don’t judge a book by its cover. There are traits they must have.
For me it’s always feet. I’ll try to never sacrifice athleticism because athleticism will get you out of trouble. So footwork is huge.
Then length—when I say length, I’m not talking height. I’m talking long limbs. That matters.
When I go see a guy: I’m sizing him up—feet, length, how he moves. Our offensive line at Miami is pretty big, but they can move.
Our left tackle is 6’9, but he can move. Does he move like our right tackle? No. But he’s longer. He can turn the light switch off from across the room—6'9 and long. That allows him to be a little less athletic than the right tackle.
Our right tackle is a big dancing bear—6’5, 335 to 340, but he doesn’t look it.
I went to a basketball game in Kansas—really there for a tight end, but someone said the center on the other team plays offensive line, has offers. So I laid my eyes on him and immediately I’m comparing him to our guys. He’s athletic, but he’s not as big as our dudes.
And we’re built a certain way because of what we ask them to do. We’re not a wide zone team. We’re a tight zone/duo team—get vertical, get downhill. At Oregon, we were wide zone—our linemen were built different.
Here: right tackle around 330-345, right guard about 330-340, center smaller around 290, left guard 6’7 335, left tackle 6’9 340. Those are big humans. If you have big humans, I’m going downhill. I’m not trying to run laterally.
You have to recruit to your philosophy. Can you have outliers? Yes. We signed a kid from Bishop Gorman—SJ Alofaituli. He’s about 6’3, 275 right now—but he’s a bad dude. We think he’ll have a great career here. But you can’t have a room full of outliers.
Every time I look at a high school offensive lineman, I’m comparing him to what my room looks like and what I want it to continue to look like. We keep our room “tight.” That’s what we look for.
VIQTORY Coaching: You coached one of the most athletic offensive linemen out there—Penei Sewell. You see what Detroit is doing with him, motioning him like a tight end and just letting him run-block people into the ground. When you coach a guy like that, do you take the bumpers off? How do you handle a player with that kind of athleticism?
Alex Mirabal: Coach Cristobal and I weaponized him. We game-planned him.
I remember 2019 at Washington—Husky Stadium. We told the OC: we need to run two to three screens every quarter, and we need to run them to the left because Penei played left. Get him out in space.
If you go back and watch that game, we ran at least two screens every quarter and it was always left. He was on the money every time. That’s how O-linemen make plays—in space.
So with special guys, you game plan them into the plan.
We do that now with our right tackle—Francis Mauigoa. There are things we do only to the right side, or with him pulling, that we don’t do with the left. We feature him because we think he has special traits.
That’s your job as a coach: get playmakers making plays. Maybe not literally the ball in their hands—but make them impact.
Detroit does it too. They’ll run tight zone left so Penei’s on the backside lifting that backside double team. They run a lot of duo to the right so he can be point-of-attack on the playside double. On duo, point of attack is playside double. On tight zone, point of attack is backside double. That’s coaching.
If it’s fourth-and-one and you’re going for it, run behind your dude.
I’ll give you another example: when the Chargers were in San Diego with LaDainian Tomlinson, they ran power left-to-right constantly. They didn’t run it both ways. Hudson Houck was their O-line coach. Same double teams, same puller—left guard Chris Dielman. When Houck went to the Dolphins with Ricky Williams, they ran power left-to-right again and put their best player at left guard.
That’s coaching. Just because you have a concept doesn’t mean you run it to both sides. Good, better, best, different. Tendencies? Sure. Stop it.
Even this year: our goal line power, we ran it to the right side because I felt our left guard was a better puller, and I wanted Anez Cooper and Francis at the point of attack. It’s a tendency—stop it.
That’s the art of it.
VIQTORY Coaching: There’s a quote of yours I loved: “I need to trust that you know what to do, why to do it, and how to do it.” Not the kind of trust where you leave your wallet and keys and they won’t touch it. How do you build that trust—especially in the portal world where guys are coming and going?
Alex Mirabal: Every day. Right now it’s January, I’m on the road recruiting. But it’s the job of our O-line GA, our O-line analyst, and our older guys to help the new guys learn what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it—the what/why/how of the Miami Hurricanes offensive system.
When I get off the road in February, then I interject: “Let’s go over duo. Let’s go over tight zone.” But I tell the new guys, “Forget about starting. You’re not starting. You’re not even competing right now, because you don’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, or how we’re doing it.”
And typically they’re like, “Okay, good, coach.” Now let’s learn. How do we call duo? Tight zone? Five-man protection? Six-man? Because right now they have no idea.
I’ll ask a kid, “How’d you guys call counter to the right?” He says, “Coach, we just said ‘counter.’” Okay—cool. That’s not how we do it at Miami. Here’s what it’s called.
So that’s January and February. When I say “trust,” here’s what I mean: I’ll ask a new kid in a meeting, in front of the room.
“Max, we’re running tight zone right. What’s the front?”
“Coach, four down.”
“Okay, you’re center—what’s the call?”
“Coach, sting 45.”
“What’s the backside guard/tackle call?”
“Banana 22.”
He’s doing it in front of the other guys. It doesn’t matter if I trust him—what matters is if the other guys trust him. When they trust him, they’ll say, “Okay, coach—he can play.”
And the answers have to come out fast and clear. You can’t stumble. Not a speech thing—nothing like that. I’m talking about guessing. If you guess, the room knows you’re guessing. You either know or you don’t know.
At first, new guys guess because they’re trying to survive. But I tell centers: fake it till you make it. If you’re not sure if it’s “bear” or “odd,” you better sell it with your voice—“Bear! Bear! Bear!” Because the room will believe you know what you’re talking about.
That’s why we do January and February—so when spring ball starts March, they can compete. If they can’t compete, they’re not starting.
Do I trust our guys as people? Yes. But I’m talking about trust to execute fast: what/why/how, and re-ID when the defense stems from four down to bear, four down to odd, etc.
Everybody processes at a different level. We had two highly touted tackles come in three years ago. One started immediately. The other is starting now. Why? The what/why/how didn't translate as fast.
And the truth is: a lot of portal issues aren’t the room. It’s outside noise—family, people back home—pushing a kid to jump when the kid knows he’s not ready yet.
VIQTORY Coaching: Do you have any non-negotiables for your offensive linemen—day one or game day?
Alex Mirabal: I don’t have a lot of non-negotiables because I think you have to be open-minded.
There are some: keep your feet flat in the ground in your stance. Don’t be up on your toes. I want ankle flexibility, knee bend, hips sink—that starts with recruiting. When I’m at a high school practice, I’m watching their stance: can he flatten his feet?
Sometimes it’s stiffness, sometimes habit. One kid who just got here—his back foot is up on the toe. I don’t think it’s anatomical; he’s just used to it. So we’re working to get it flat.
If you’re on the left side, you’re in a left-handed stagger. Right side, right-handed stagger. Some places don’t do that—I don’t get it, but it is what it is.
We have two different types of double teams. If you’re covered: Crowder. Uncovered has an overlap. And we also have inside-footwork double-under with a gallop—that’s based on the D-lineman’s alignment. Loose/gap player? Crowder/overlap. Heavy technique? Covered goes double-under; uncovered gallops so they don’t knock each other off.
I’m a big jump-set guy—but not always. Third-and-forever? You’re not jumping; you’ll get gains and picked. So you need negotiables.
I think coaching is art. You work with them: why are you stubborn about a technique? “Coach did this.” Okay—we’ll figure it out.
Penei wasn’t a big gallop guy; he liked overlap. I could’ve been a jackleg about it—but he was getting the job done. He was athletic enough to make the angle work. Another tackle we had at Oregon wasn’t as athletic—if he angled and tried to get back vertical, he’d snap his hip and knees. He needed to gallop.
So you can’t be a dictator. You learn from players.
I’ll tell you another: pulling on power. Skip puller or open puller? I kind of leave it to what they’re comfortable with. But on counter? Non-negotiable: right foot/right shoulder going right, left foot/left shoulder going left. If you don’t, you’ll knock yourself out, stinger, all that.
Finish is non-negotiable. Play with an edge—non-negotiable. But technique? I’m negotiable if it’s not detrimental to the job.
And here’s an example: gallop—everyone teaches “stay square, don’t turn shoulders, don’t bring backside hand.” Shane Lemieux at Oregon would listen, then in live reps he’d go boom—forearm on hip, bring the backside hand, launch, and pull it back out. It worked. That’s how I teach it now.
VIQTORY Coaching: Kudos to you for letting players solve it with their bodies. If they can get the job done, you don’t box them in.
Alex Mirabal: Exactly. No absolutes. I tell them that all the time.
The hardest guys to coach are the strict interpreters—“Coach, you said this.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but if it moves, you can move.”
VIQTORY Coaching: In pass pro: jump set, 45 set, vertical set—you said you do all of them. Are you trying to stay square to the line of scrimmage as long as possible?
Alex Mirabal: As square back as humanly possible—until I have to turn. At some point, you have to turn.
But you need all the sets because situations change.
If we’re in 50 protection—five-man—and we’re to the man side, and the right guard has a 3-tech, right tackle has a 5, and there’s a linebacker in a 20 alignment: the right tackle has to vertical set. Peek the 5, eyes on the backer. If the backer triggers down, you squeeze and come down. You can’t do that if you jump or 45. You have to vertical.
So we implement all of it.
VIQTORY Coaching: How much are you guys paying attention to coverage rotation, back-end indicators, cat blitzes, things like that?
Alex Mirabal: We see the whole picture. We don’t play with blinders.
They know cat pressure. If we’re three-man sorting and the nickel is on the slide and there’s cap safety and the nickel comes—push the point out.
Center can push it, or if the left tackle sees it first, he’ll alert—“Fire, fire, fire”—to the center, and then the center pushes it out.
It’s all-encompassing. But I don’t think you teach a brand-new kid that day one. Gradually. Older guys help.
At first: worry about the guy you’re supposed to block. That’s number one. But the best ones see it and hear it.
We played Florida State two years ago in Tallahassee—first play of the second half. We’re in tight zone left, and Fiske and Verse run a TE stunt on the back end. Left guard/left tackle picked it up perfectly. I asked them, “How’d you know?” They said, “We heard them.”
They heard the call. That’s real ball.
So you debrief: “Are they talking? What are they saying?” And linemen share it. Right tackle tells left tackle, “When the 3-tech says ‘ear, ear, ear,’ get ready—EP stunt.” Stuff like that.
VIQTORY Coaching: Communication-wise: do you prefer center making the adjustments, quarterback making the adjustments—what’s most efficient?
Alex Mirabal: Center starts it for us. Center makes the line-of-scrimmage calls—run game and protection—like most colleges.
In the NFL, like Tom Brady, if you’re making protection calls, you also have to make run calls, or the defense knows it’s pass. That’s why NFL quarterbacks who do it do both.
In college, a lot of OCs and QB coaches don’t want to teach all of that. So the center makes the calls, and the quarterback has veto power.
If we’re sliding left, but boundary safety rolls down and cat blitz is coming right—quarterback can “easy” it, push the protection.
Quarterback has best seat in the house. He calls for the ball last.
And you have to build dummy into your system, too. If the center points, defenses read that. So we’ll dummy run calls with pass calls and vice versa. That’s the game within the game.
VIQTORY Coaching: Last section: game-planning the run game. What are you looking for on opponent cutups—what runs you like, who you attack, formations, all that?
Alex Mirabal: We’re trying to find ways to run our base runs—whatever those are.
One of our goals as an offensive staff—and Coach Dawson has done a great job with it—is eliminating negative plays. Wide zone is a great play, but it can create negative plays, and we’re not willing to negotiate that. That’s a big reason we’re not wide zone heavy.
So we cut up everything. Give me every duo. Every tight zone. GT counters. GY counters. Dart. Then we look: what have they had difficulty stopping? Out of what formations—2x2, 3x1? Is there a specific guy we want to run at? I’m not huge on that if they move him around—it’s hard to dictate.
I’m adamant: don’t block corners. Don’t block corners.
Then we also ask: if our base run isn’t something teams have had success with against them, why? And how do we get it?
But at the end of the day, you have to run what you run well. Sometimes you have to force it.
I’ll do more of the short yardage and goal line stuff. And I’ll tell the OC, “We need this out of 11,” or “We need this out of 12.” When you go 12, do they stay in nickel or go base? Then the OC marries play-action off the same sets, motions, shifts—so run and play-action look the same.
We run some RPO, but we’re not big RPO. We’re more “run-it runs.” If you call a run, run it.
Because if you give a quarterback like Cam Ward, Carson Beck, Shedeur Sanders an option to throw it? He’s going to throw it. “Coach, but he moved one inch!” Yeah—don’t give him the option.
If we want to throw off run action, we use play-action. I think play-action is underused in college. People get stuck on RPOs.
All of this happens Sunday and Monday, and then you rip and roll.
VIQTORY Coaching: Coach, I appreciate how thorough you were. Any last words before we sign off? Where can people follow your journey at Miami?
Alex Mirabal: I’m blessed to be in the position I’m in. And I think we’re teachers, not coaches. I wish people would refer to us as teachers. For our profession to elevate—high school, college, NFL—we need to promote teaching.
We don’t have secrets. It’s what you do with the information you have. That’s the art.
I love doing this because it’s my job to give back—after all I’ve taken from this profession. I’ve learned from guys I know and don’t know, even from afar. Mediums like yours help us continue to learn.
You put a clip up the other day—Ohio State doing a drill with O-line and linebackers. We do that at Miami. Our linebacker coach at the time, Derek Nicholson, brought it. He left for Missouri, but he sent it to me, I sent it to him, and I sent it to Coach Hetherman. I said, “We need to do this.” He said, “Alex, I’m all in.” And we did it.
That’s why what you all do matters—it lets us learn. I’m 54 and I’m thirsting for a better way. Jim McNally is 81 and he’s still thirsting for a better way. If we all have that mentality, our profession grows, our players grow.
And I’d tell everybody: if you’re a high school coach, be where your feet are. If you’re a college coach, be where your feet are. Your work will be noted, respected, rewarded in time.
And honestly, I’d love to end my career going back to high school—teaching and coaching at its truest form. That’s my goal at the end of this whole deal.
VIQTORY Coaching: All right, we have Coach Alex Mirabal with us. Coach, a fun fact I found out about you: you and Coach Cristobal were teammates in high school. Is that correct?
Alex Mirabal: Yeah. We became teammates in 1984 at Christopher Columbus High School and played four years together there. And now, what, 38, 39 years later, we’re still hanging out. We’re still teammates. He’s the head coach, I’m the assistant coach. But yeah—May of 1984 during spring football practice, that’s when we met. We kind of hit it off, built a friendship, and we’ve known each other ever since.
VIQTORY Coaching: I love that. I was doing my homework on you and came across that tidbit—really cool that you guys stayed connected this entire time. Before we get into the offensive line stuff, we do a quick intro. If you don’t mind: introduce yourself, and I want you to brag on yourself a little with all the success you’ve had.
Alex Mirabal: My name is Alex Mirabal. I’m currently the offensive line coach at the University of Miami. I’m entering my 19th season as a college coach after 16 years as a teacher and a football and track coach in high school. I’ve been very blessed with the opportunities I’ve been given in my life—not only as a high school teacher and coach, but now as a college teacher and coach.
And I think a lot of times… if anybody ever talks about me, I would love for them to describe me as a teacher. That’s the greatest compliment anybody could ever give me: “He was a great teacher,” or “He tried to be a great teacher.”
VIQTORY Coaching: I want to dive into that. And before we get fully into the line play—this is going to be offensive line focused—I want to talk about your journey, because you took a non-traditional route. You started at Columbus, you were a high school football coach, a track and field coach. You’re one of us—high school coaches. You didn’t do the traditional GA route. Can you talk about how you went from volunteer coaching all the way to your first college job at FIU?
Alex Mirabal: Yeah. So when I got out of high school, news flash—I’m not very tall, right? So I never played in college. But I stayed connected to football while I was in college. My old high school coach and my old high school offensive line coach asked, “Hey, do you want to volunteer?” So I did.
I would volunteer on game day—be “eye in the sky” in the press box on game day. After a year or two, I thought, “Man, that’s pretty cool. I’d like to dive further into it.” So then it became: I had a job while I was going to college, but maybe I could skip out and go once or twice to practice during the week and still do game day.
Well, once or twice during the week became every day. And then it became, “Hey—this is what I want to do.” I want to do what these high school coaches and teachers are doing—which is affecting and impacting lives on a daily basis.
So I went and studied, became a social studies education major, and I taught American History and U.S. Government for 16 years. Loved every minute of it. And I’m as passionate about teaching that as I am about teaching offensive line play.
I taught five periods a day—five out of six—and after school you have another three “periods” of football, right? Three hours of practice.
I was blessed: my head high school football coach—Dennis Lavelle—was also the guy I first started to work for. Phenomenal math teacher. And he told me early on, “Don’t ever let them take you out of the classroom.”
And I asked, “Coach, why?”
He said, “Because all you’re doing when you’re teaching—math, history, English, science—whatever—is practicing communicating. Getting information from you to students. From you to players.” He also said as a teacher, you impact so many people beyond just players. And as a football coach, you impact the school community.
I always took that to heart. Every time I taught American History or U.S. Government, I felt like I was practicing coaching. And anytime I was coaching, I was practicing becoming a better teacher.
So I did that for 16 years. Then January 1st, 2007 was my first year as a college coach. And I wasn’t trying to become a college coach—it kind of happened.
Coach Cristobal became the head football coach at Florida International University and asked me, “Hey, will you come with me?”
And I said, “I wasn’t really planning on getting into college coaching. I’ve got a good life. My wife’s a teacher, I’m a teacher. You get similar times off, all that stuff.” But we didn’t have to move the family, so my wife and I decided: let’s do it.
For six years I was at FIU with Coach Cristobal. Then we got fired—which happens. December 6th or 7th of 2012. I was going to go right back into high school.
And my wife said, “Hey, we don’t have to go back to high school if you don’t want to. We could stay in college.”
I said, “If we go on this college deal now, we’re in that carousel.” Moving, moving, moving.
She said, “If we have an opportunity, let’s do it.”
So February 2013, I interview and become the offensive line coach at Marshall with Doc Holliday. I got that opportunity because Marshall’s offensive coordinator at the time—Bill Legg, a dear friend—had been with us at FIU. He said, “We have an opening.” Boom. Went and interviewed.
We go up to Huntington, West Virginia for five seasons. And my wife moved us up there. And I always say this: I’ve never moved. My wife and my kids have moved. Because the burden falls on them.
I always go ahead. I get to Huntington in February, I’m recruiting, I’m doing spring ball—while my wife is finishing the school year teaching, my boys finishing their year at school. She’s the one packing the house, handling all that.
So I’ve never moved. She’s moved—three times. Because I’m always ahead.
We were there five years, then Coach Cristobal gets the head job at Oregon and asks us to go to Eugene. We did. Again—burden on my wife and kids.
When the moving truck got there, they’re at the house helping movers unpack and I’m literally at a spring scrimmage with the Ducks at a local high school. That’s the behind-the-scenes.
If you want to be successful as a college coach, your home is the key. I don’t know how guys do it where they coach and their family stays behind. I could never do that.
Then Coach had the opportunity to come home to Miami—which is my home too—and asked me to come. Again: I’m at the Alamo Bowl with Oregon playing Oklahoma, and my wife and kids don’t come. She flies to Miami to look for a home for us. Again—on them.
VIQTORY Coaching: That actually answers something I was going to ask: the hardest part going from high school to college. Football is football, ball is ball—but outside the field, that transition is huge.
Alex Mirabal: The most anxious days I’ve had as a college coach were my son’s first day of school in Huntington, my son’s first day of school in Eugene, and my son’s first day of school back in Miami.
Ask any college coach—they’ll tell you the same thing. That’s what we’re worried about. Once that first day happens and they’re like, “Dad, it was awesome,” the stress is gone.
Most of it falls on our wives—steadying the family, being the rock.
And people ask me all the time, “Do you miss teaching?” What do you mean do I miss teaching? I do it every day.
And honestly, it bothers me sometimes that people don’t view coaches as teachers. That’s what we are.
I have a classroom now—it’s called the offensive line room. But it’s a classroom. We’ve got whiteboards, video, and I’ll get 50 to 55 minutes of class time just like American History and U.S. Government. Then we go apply it outside.
And I think when people start viewing coaches as teachers, the profession keeps climbing. That’s why you see so many former high school coaches succeed at college—they’ve written lesson plans, they understand classroom management. Classroom management is keeping them on task. Idle hands, right? Keep them busy. When the O-line walks in my room, I’m ripping. I don’t give them downtime. Same as a classroom.
And when I jumped from high school to college, it took very little time to realize: they’re just 13th grade, 14th grade, 15th grade. Don’t treat them like pros because they’re not pros. They’re young men.
We had four O-linemen start with us who should have still been in high school. So I’ve got to bring structure—how to wake up, attendance, all that—because they’re away from mom and dad for the first time. I become that surrogate parent.
If you treat it like an extension of high school, you’ll be all right. If you treat them like pros, that’s where you get caught.
VIQTORY Coaching: I think that’s why you’ve had so much success. You don’t coach everybody like a dictator. You coach the 13th grader different from the veteran who’s about to be drafted.
Alex Mirabal: Coaching and teaching is an art, not a science. Every guy is a different canvas. It’s up to you to help him through his journey.
That’s what we do. That’s what I love. I like recruiting, but the reason I coach is because I get to teach.
VIQTORY Coaching: Let’s stick on recruiting for a second. You’re arguably one of the best recruiters out there. When you walk into a home of an offensive lineman—what are you looking for beyond height and weight? Bend? Measurables? Football IQ? What stands out?
Alex Mirabal: To me, you start with the cover—even though people say don’t judge a book by its cover. There are traits they must have.
For me it’s always feet. I’ll try to never sacrifice athleticism because athleticism will get you out of trouble. So footwork is huge.
Then length—when I say length, I’m not talking height. I’m talking long limbs. That matters.
When I go see a guy: I’m sizing him up—feet, length, how he moves. Our offensive line at Miami is pretty big, but they can move.
Our left tackle is 6’9, but he can move. Does he move like our right tackle? No. But he’s longer. He can turn the light switch off from across the room—6'9 and long. That allows him to be a little less athletic than the right tackle.
Our right tackle is a big dancing bear—6’5, 335 to 340, but he doesn’t look it.
I went to a basketball game in Kansas—really there for a tight end, but someone said the center on the other team plays offensive line, has offers. So I laid my eyes on him and immediately I’m comparing him to our guys. He’s athletic, but he’s not as big as our dudes.
And we’re built a certain way because of what we ask them to do. We’re not a wide zone team. We’re a tight zone/duo team—get vertical, get downhill. At Oregon, we were wide zone—our linemen were built different.
Here: right tackle around 330-345, right guard about 330-340, center smaller around 290, left guard 6’7 335, left tackle 6’9 340. Those are big humans. If you have big humans, I’m going downhill. I’m not trying to run laterally.
You have to recruit to your philosophy. Can you have outliers? Yes. We signed a kid from Bishop Gorman—SJ Alofaituli. He’s about 6’3, 275 right now—but he’s a bad dude. We think he’ll have a great career here. But you can’t have a room full of outliers.
Every time I look at a high school offensive lineman, I’m comparing him to what my room looks like and what I want it to continue to look like. We keep our room “tight.” That’s what we look for.
VIQTORY Coaching: You coached one of the most athletic offensive linemen out there—Penei Sewell. You see what Detroit is doing with him, motioning him like a tight end and just letting him run-block people into the ground. When you coach a guy like that, do you take the bumpers off? How do you handle a player with that kind of athleticism?
Alex Mirabal: Coach Cristobal and I weaponized him. We game-planned him.
I remember 2019 at Washington—Husky Stadium. We told the OC: we need to run two to three screens every quarter, and we need to run them to the left because Penei played left. Get him out in space.
If you go back and watch that game, we ran at least two screens every quarter and it was always left. He was on the money every time. That’s how O-linemen make plays—in space.
So with special guys, you game plan them into the plan.
We do that now with our right tackle—Francis Mauigoa. There are things we do only to the right side, or with him pulling, that we don’t do with the left. We feature him because we think he has special traits.
That’s your job as a coach: get playmakers making plays. Maybe not literally the ball in their hands—but make them impact.
Detroit does it too. They’ll run tight zone left so Penei’s on the backside lifting that backside double team. They run a lot of duo to the right so he can be point-of-attack on the playside double. On duo, point of attack is playside double. On tight zone, point of attack is backside double. That’s coaching.
If it’s fourth-and-one and you’re going for it, run behind your dude.
I’ll give you another example: when the Chargers were in San Diego with LaDainian Tomlinson, they ran power left-to-right constantly. They didn’t run it both ways. Hudson Houck was their O-line coach. Same double teams, same puller—left guard Chris Dielman. When Houck went to the Dolphins with Ricky Williams, they ran power left-to-right again and put their best player at left guard.
That’s coaching. Just because you have a concept doesn’t mean you run it to both sides. Good, better, best, different. Tendencies? Sure. Stop it.
Even this year: our goal line power, we ran it to the right side because I felt our left guard was a better puller, and I wanted Anez Cooper and Francis at the point of attack. It’s a tendency—stop it.
That’s the art of it.
VIQTORY Coaching: There’s a quote of yours I loved: “I need to trust that you know what to do, why to do it, and how to do it.” Not the kind of trust where you leave your wallet and keys and they won’t touch it. How do you build that trust—especially in the portal world where guys are coming and going?
Alex Mirabal: Every day. Right now it’s January, I’m on the road recruiting. But it’s the job of our O-line GA, our O-line analyst, and our older guys to help the new guys learn what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it—the what/why/how of the Miami Hurricanes offensive system.
When I get off the road in February, then I interject: “Let’s go over duo. Let’s go over tight zone.” But I tell the new guys, “Forget about starting. You’re not starting. You’re not even competing right now, because you don’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, or how we’re doing it.”
And typically they’re like, “Okay, good, coach.” Now let’s learn. How do we call duo? Tight zone? Five-man protection? Six-man? Because right now they have no idea.
I’ll ask a kid, “How’d you guys call counter to the right?” He says, “Coach, we just said ‘counter.’” Okay—cool. That’s not how we do it at Miami. Here’s what it’s called.
So that’s January and February. When I say “trust,” here’s what I mean: I’ll ask a new kid in a meeting, in front of the room.
“Max, we’re running tight zone right. What’s the front?”
“Coach, four down.”
“Okay, you’re center—what’s the call?”
“Coach, sting 45.”
“What’s the backside guard/tackle call?”
“Banana 22.”
He’s doing it in front of the other guys. It doesn’t matter if I trust him—what matters is if the other guys trust him. When they trust him, they’ll say, “Okay, coach—he can play.”
And the answers have to come out fast and clear. You can’t stumble. Not a speech thing—nothing like that. I’m talking about guessing. If you guess, the room knows you’re guessing. You either know or you don’t know.
At first, new guys guess because they’re trying to survive. But I tell centers: fake it till you make it. If you’re not sure if it’s “bear” or “odd,” you better sell it with your voice—“Bear! Bear! Bear!” Because the room will believe you know what you’re talking about.
That’s why we do January and February—so when spring ball starts March, they can compete. If they can’t compete, they’re not starting.
Do I trust our guys as people? Yes. But I’m talking about trust to execute fast: what/why/how, and re-ID when the defense stems from four down to bear, four down to odd, etc.
Everybody processes at a different level. We had two highly touted tackles come in three years ago. One started immediately. The other is starting now. Why? The what/why/how didn't translate as fast.
And the truth is: a lot of portal issues aren’t the room. It’s outside noise—family, people back home—pushing a kid to jump when the kid knows he’s not ready yet.
VIQTORY Coaching: Do you have any non-negotiables for your offensive linemen—day one or game day?
Alex Mirabal: I don’t have a lot of non-negotiables because I think you have to be open-minded.
There are some: keep your feet flat in the ground in your stance. Don’t be up on your toes. I want ankle flexibility, knee bend, hips sink—that starts with recruiting. When I’m at a high school practice, I’m watching their stance: can he flatten his feet?
Sometimes it’s stiffness, sometimes habit. One kid who just got here—his back foot is up on the toe. I don’t think it’s anatomical; he’s just used to it. So we’re working to get it flat.
If you’re on the left side, you’re in a left-handed stagger. Right side, right-handed stagger. Some places don’t do that—I don’t get it, but it is what it is.
We have two different types of double teams. If you’re covered: Crowder. Uncovered has an overlap. And we also have inside-footwork double-under with a gallop—that’s based on the D-lineman’s alignment. Loose/gap player? Crowder/overlap. Heavy technique? Covered goes double-under; uncovered gallops so they don’t knock each other off.
I’m a big jump-set guy—but not always. Third-and-forever? You’re not jumping; you’ll get gains and picked. So you need negotiables.
I think coaching is art. You work with them: why are you stubborn about a technique? “Coach did this.” Okay—we’ll figure it out.
Penei wasn’t a big gallop guy; he liked overlap. I could’ve been a jackleg about it—but he was getting the job done. He was athletic enough to make the angle work. Another tackle we had at Oregon wasn’t as athletic—if he angled and tried to get back vertical, he’d snap his hip and knees. He needed to gallop.
So you can’t be a dictator. You learn from players.
I’ll tell you another: pulling on power. Skip puller or open puller? I kind of leave it to what they’re comfortable with. But on counter? Non-negotiable: right foot/right shoulder going right, left foot/left shoulder going left. If you don’t, you’ll knock yourself out, stinger, all that.
Finish is non-negotiable. Play with an edge—non-negotiable. But technique? I’m negotiable if it’s not detrimental to the job.
And here’s an example: gallop—everyone teaches “stay square, don’t turn shoulders, don’t bring backside hand.” Shane Lemieux at Oregon would listen, then in live reps he’d go boom—forearm on hip, bring the backside hand, launch, and pull it back out. It worked. That’s how I teach it now.
VIQTORY Coaching: Kudos to you for letting players solve it with their bodies. If they can get the job done, you don’t box them in.
Alex Mirabal: Exactly. No absolutes. I tell them that all the time.
The hardest guys to coach are the strict interpreters—“Coach, you said this.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but if it moves, you can move.”
VIQTORY Coaching: In pass pro: jump set, 45 set, vertical set—you said you do all of them. Are you trying to stay square to the line of scrimmage as long as possible?
Alex Mirabal: As square back as humanly possible—until I have to turn. At some point, you have to turn.
But you need all the sets because situations change.
If we’re in 50 protection—five-man—and we’re to the man side, and the right guard has a 3-tech, right tackle has a 5, and there’s a linebacker in a 20 alignment: the right tackle has to vertical set. Peek the 5, eyes on the backer. If the backer triggers down, you squeeze and come down. You can’t do that if you jump or 45. You have to vertical.
So we implement all of it.
VIQTORY Coaching: How much are you guys paying attention to coverage rotation, back-end indicators, cat blitzes, things like that?
Alex Mirabal: We see the whole picture. We don’t play with blinders.
They know cat pressure. If we’re three-man sorting and the nickel is on the slide and there’s cap safety and the nickel comes—push the point out.
Center can push it, or if the left tackle sees it first, he’ll alert—“Fire, fire, fire”—to the center, and then the center pushes it out.
It’s all-encompassing. But I don’t think you teach a brand-new kid that day one. Gradually. Older guys help.
At first: worry about the guy you’re supposed to block. That’s number one. But the best ones see it and hear it.
We played Florida State two years ago in Tallahassee—first play of the second half. We’re in tight zone left, and Fiske and Verse run a TE stunt on the back end. Left guard/left tackle picked it up perfectly. I asked them, “How’d you know?” They said, “We heard them.”
They heard the call. That’s real ball.
So you debrief: “Are they talking? What are they saying?” And linemen share it. Right tackle tells left tackle, “When the 3-tech says ‘ear, ear, ear,’ get ready—EP stunt.” Stuff like that.
VIQTORY Coaching: Communication-wise: do you prefer center making the adjustments, quarterback making the adjustments—what’s most efficient?
Alex Mirabal: Center starts it for us. Center makes the line-of-scrimmage calls—run game and protection—like most colleges.
In the NFL, like Tom Brady, if you’re making protection calls, you also have to make run calls, or the defense knows it’s pass. That’s why NFL quarterbacks who do it do both.
In college, a lot of OCs and QB coaches don’t want to teach all of that. So the center makes the calls, and the quarterback has veto power.
If we’re sliding left, but boundary safety rolls down and cat blitz is coming right—quarterback can “easy” it, push the protection.
Quarterback has best seat in the house. He calls for the ball last.
And you have to build dummy into your system, too. If the center points, defenses read that. So we’ll dummy run calls with pass calls and vice versa. That’s the game within the game.
VIQTORY Coaching: Last section: game-planning the run game. What are you looking for on opponent cutups—what runs you like, who you attack, formations, all that?
Alex Mirabal: We’re trying to find ways to run our base runs—whatever those are.
One of our goals as an offensive staff—and Coach Dawson has done a great job with it—is eliminating negative plays. Wide zone is a great play, but it can create negative plays, and we’re not willing to negotiate that. That’s a big reason we’re not wide zone heavy.
So we cut up everything. Give me every duo. Every tight zone. GT counters. GY counters. Dart. Then we look: what have they had difficulty stopping? Out of what formations—2x2, 3x1? Is there a specific guy we want to run at? I’m not huge on that if they move him around—it’s hard to dictate.
I’m adamant: don’t block corners. Don’t block corners.
Then we also ask: if our base run isn’t something teams have had success with against them, why? And how do we get it?
But at the end of the day, you have to run what you run well. Sometimes you have to force it.
I’ll do more of the short yardage and goal line stuff. And I’ll tell the OC, “We need this out of 11,” or “We need this out of 12.” When you go 12, do they stay in nickel or go base? Then the OC marries play-action off the same sets, motions, shifts—so run and play-action look the same.
We run some RPO, but we’re not big RPO. We’re more “run-it runs.” If you call a run, run it.
Because if you give a quarterback like Cam Ward, Carson Beck, Shedeur Sanders an option to throw it? He’s going to throw it. “Coach, but he moved one inch!” Yeah—don’t give him the option.
If we want to throw off run action, we use play-action. I think play-action is underused in college. People get stuck on RPOs.
All of this happens Sunday and Monday, and then you rip and roll.
VIQTORY Coaching: Coach, I appreciate how thorough you were. Any last words before we sign off? Where can people follow your journey at Miami?
Alex Mirabal: I’m blessed to be in the position I’m in. And I think we’re teachers, not coaches. I wish people would refer to us as teachers. For our profession to elevate—high school, college, NFL—we need to promote teaching.
We don’t have secrets. It’s what you do with the information you have. That’s the art.
I love doing this because it’s my job to give back—after all I’ve taken from this profession. I’ve learned from guys I know and don’t know, even from afar. Mediums like yours help us continue to learn.
You put a clip up the other day—Ohio State doing a drill with O-line and linebackers. We do that at Miami. Our linebacker coach at the time, Derek Nicholson, brought it. He left for Missouri, but he sent it to me, I sent it to him, and I sent it to Coach Hetherman. I said, “We need to do this.” He said, “Alex, I’m all in.” And we did it.
That’s why what you all do matters—it lets us learn. I’m 54 and I’m thirsting for a better way. Jim McNally is 81 and he’s still thirsting for a better way. If we all have that mentality, our profession grows, our players grow.
And I’d tell everybody: if you’re a high school coach, be where your feet are. If you’re a college coach, be where your feet are. Your work will be noted, respected, rewarded in time.
And honestly, I’d love to end my career going back to high school—teaching and coaching at its truest form. That’s my goal at the end of this whole deal.
