Mario Cristobal: Cooper Barkate Is A ‘Complete Football Player,’ Jordan Lyle Is ‘Full-Speed’ Again
5 min read
Mario Cristobal and the Miami Hurricanes football program wrapped up their sixth fall camp practice, and Cristobal spoke to the media to recap the day. Check out everything he had to say below.
Opening statements: I believe that's practice number six. Today was full pads, but we've been in pads, so that's, you know, a little bit misleading. And we've been getting after it pretty good and looking for guys to fight through the rigors, through fatigue, through discomfort. Coach Jimmy Johnson was here today. He spoke to the team this morning and hit on some just awesome messages like he always does. It takes you back to being in that room as a player when he talked about the importance of conditioning, about the importance of eliminating mistakes, the importance of having your best players be your hardest workers. It really hit home with the guys. I certainly appreciate him. But he was out there at practice today, so it was awesome. Looking forward to having more alumni, more former coaches back here and always sharing with our football players and our team.
On the alumni coming back to practices: The fact that they are who they are and the fact that they invested their entire existence into the University of Miami, and then the fact that it's actually carried into a reality, it actually plays out in the rest of the day and hopefully the rest of the semester, the season, or whatnot. Yeah, it's ultra valuable. You notice there's no cameras and it's not for show. We don't subscribe to that, you know. Like, we have our very private, behind-the-scenes, hit-you-right-between-the-eyes lessons, mentorship, betterment. And for our players, that's special. We want to keep it that way. We want to keep it strong. We want to keep it real. It's extremely impactful. So, it's something that we've always incorporated, but we're incorporating it more and more, and we look forward to doing it some more.
On Jake Olson and Jake Weinberg: I think it's important not to label them and let them compete because what they have both shown in camp, they can both kick it out of the end zone and they both have excellent range. We can kick 48, 50s, 52s. I forget what we got to, but it was close enough to 55 where you feel confident you can do it. We feel really good about all three, but we're tapping everything, we're putting them in situations that they have to shine and create separation. So, I really can't say how it's going to work out yet. We got to let it play out, but make it as fair as possible, assess, and then provide each guy with a path for betterment to give them a chance to be that guy. But I think this will be an ongoing thing all season.
On what he learned from last year’s kicking competition: I think it's what the same thing that Coach preached this morning that we've always known. Competition brings the best out of everybody, and you shouldn't be, you shouldn't pick and choose who that applies to. Whether you're the quarterback, whether you just came in as a guy that transferred in here, whether you're a freshman that just walked through the door. The only way to get the best out of people is to present them situations that's going to have them fighting, scrapping, clawing for their opportunity, for a role, for a contribution to the team, for a starting position. I think that that holds true across the board for the entire team.
On Cooper Barkate: He's a complete football player. I think he's proven over time that he fits in just about any offense. He's versatile from a position standpoint, inside, outside. He's a multi-sport guy, so athletically he can perform anything in the playbook that we have. He's really smart. He has no hesitation throwing his body around. We involve our receivers a lot in the run game, in the screen game. And I think what's kind of neat, those guys have the example of C.J. Daniels. A guy that, man, came from two different spots and had to do it all, right? Had to block, had to sometimes insert in there like a fullback. Not that you want to do it all the time, but sometimes it comes with it. Go up and make contested catches, line guys up the right way. He's a complete player and looking forward to big things from him.
On Jordan Lyle: I see the Jordan Lyle that we saw a year ago in many respects, but with better physical traits, meaning, I think, credit to Coach Ervin Young and the staff, and Sports Science and the training room, those guys have really collaborated to put us in a position to be able to practice like this? Because you train to be able to practice, and you practice to be able to play. You're gonna play like you train. And we wanna be, we don't wanna post it or tweet it, but we wanna be a relentless team, right? A physically violent, imposing, elite-conditioned football team. And Jordan has taken strength and conditioning very seriously. I think he's certainly improved his COD, his XL decel rate. He's healthy, which I think is a really important part. I don't think people really knew the extent of how banged up he was last year. And we see a full-speed player. Really excited about him. We're gonna test him really, really hard over the next couple days.
Opening statements: I believe that's practice number six. Today was full pads, but we've been in pads, so that's, you know, a little bit misleading. And we've been getting after it pretty good and looking for guys to fight through the rigors, through fatigue, through discomfort. Coach Jimmy Johnson was here today. He spoke to the team this morning and hit on some just awesome messages like he always does. It takes you back to being in that room as a player when he talked about the importance of conditioning, about the importance of eliminating mistakes, the importance of having your best players be your hardest workers. It really hit home with the guys. I certainly appreciate him. But he was out there at practice today, so it was awesome. Looking forward to having more alumni, more former coaches back here and always sharing with our football players and our team.
On the alumni coming back to practices: The fact that they are who they are and the fact that they invested their entire existence into the University of Miami, and then the fact that it's actually carried into a reality, it actually plays out in the rest of the day and hopefully the rest of the semester, the season, or whatnot. Yeah, it's ultra valuable. You notice there's no cameras and it's not for show. We don't subscribe to that, you know. Like, we have our very private, behind-the-scenes, hit-you-right-between-the-eyes lessons, mentorship, betterment. And for our players, that's special. We want to keep it that way. We want to keep it strong. We want to keep it real. It's extremely impactful. So, it's something that we've always incorporated, but we're incorporating it more and more, and we look forward to doing it some more.
On Jake Olson and Jake Weinberg: I think it's important not to label them and let them compete because what they have both shown in camp, they can both kick it out of the end zone and they both have excellent range. We can kick 48, 50s, 52s. I forget what we got to, but it was close enough to 55 where you feel confident you can do it. We feel really good about all three, but we're tapping everything, we're putting them in situations that they have to shine and create separation. So, I really can't say how it's going to work out yet. We got to let it play out, but make it as fair as possible, assess, and then provide each guy with a path for betterment to give them a chance to be that guy. But I think this will be an ongoing thing all season.
On what he learned from last year’s kicking competition: I think it's what the same thing that Coach preached this morning that we've always known. Competition brings the best out of everybody, and you shouldn't be, you shouldn't pick and choose who that applies to. Whether you're the quarterback, whether you just came in as a guy that transferred in here, whether you're a freshman that just walked through the door. The only way to get the best out of people is to present them situations that's going to have them fighting, scrapping, clawing for their opportunity, for a role, for a contribution to the team, for a starting position. I think that that holds true across the board for the entire team.
On Cooper Barkate: He's a complete football player. I think he's proven over time that he fits in just about any offense. He's versatile from a position standpoint, inside, outside. He's a multi-sport guy, so athletically he can perform anything in the playbook that we have. He's really smart. He has no hesitation throwing his body around. We involve our receivers a lot in the run game, in the screen game. And I think what's kind of neat, those guys have the example of C.J. Daniels. A guy that, man, came from two different spots and had to do it all, right? Had to block, had to sometimes insert in there like a fullback. Not that you want to do it all the time, but sometimes it comes with it. Go up and make contested catches, line guys up the right way. He's a complete player and looking forward to big things from him.
On Jordan Lyle: I see the Jordan Lyle that we saw a year ago in many respects, but with better physical traits, meaning, I think, credit to Coach Ervin Young and the staff, and Sports Science and the training room, those guys have really collaborated to put us in a position to be able to practice like this? Because you train to be able to practice, and you practice to be able to play. You're gonna play like you train. And we wanna be, we don't wanna post it or tweet it, but we wanna be a relentless team, right? A physically violent, imposing, elite-conditioned football team. And Jordan has taken strength and conditioning very seriously. I think he's certainly improved his COD, his XL decel rate. He's healthy, which I think is a really important part. I don't think people really knew the extent of how banged up he was last year. And we see a full-speed player. Really excited about him. We're gonna test him really, really hard over the next couple days.
