Miami Hurricanes football head coach Mario Cristobal joined the “1010XL” show Tuesday morning, where the guys chopped it up about the culture around Miami football and the upcoming season.
Get it all down below:
Reporter: All right. So you get to one play on the last play of the last game of the season. You're literally right there at the precipice of like completing the turnaround. Now you worked with Nick. I always say Nick's greatest, greatest thing he did was convincing players the next year, there's new gold out there. Go get it. How do you do that?
Mario Crisotbal: Well, I think we completed the turnaround at Miami. That's undoubtedly been done. Winning a national championship is where we fell a play short, maybe a couple of plays short. And all that does, honestly, motivate you, gets you ready to go again. There's no other way to look at it on our side. My perspective, our team focus. There is no sensationalism. There is no drama. You know what? You had a kick-*** year. You did a lot of great things. You got better. You got more physical. The line of scrimmage has really come around. And when you're right there and you don't get it done, you know what? You get ****ed off and you go back to work. You shut your mouth. You don't say anything. You just go back to work.
Reporter: It's a different kind of hunger. It really is. We're talking with Coach Mario Cristobal of the Miami Hurricanes because they still have, but they got a taste of it. And now they want more of it. You shipped a lot of guys off to the NFL. Like you said, Miami has come back from a recruiting point of view and a portal.
Mario Cristobal: I mean, winning 13 games in a season is tough. You know, beating seven top 25 teams is tough. Four top 10 teams. And you know what? For us, that's what we want to be. That's what we have worked ourselves into becoming. And knowing that all that, you know what? It's tremendous progress. Now let's build on that. All right? That one's been put to bed. It's a restart button, reset, start all over with the team that's really has come around in a tremendous manner, has invested a ton of work ever since that day. And that we're extremely enthused about. But we don't make any proclamations or any predictions. We just get right at the important stuff, the work.
Reporter: So take us behind the process of the quarterback, how you and Shannon have gone from transfer to transfer and now another transfer, three straight transfers. Obviously, a lot of success with Cam, a lot of success with Carson. Now you've got Darren Mensah. How do you guys do that? How do you go from one to one to one like that?
Mario Crisotbal: Well, I think it's simple. You assess your roster and you're honest with yourself. Where do we lack what we need to play at the highest level, right? And we feel great about our quarterback room. It's just not at that level just yet. We do think it'll be there in a year, but right now we needed someone. We needed a veteran, right? You look at our other positions. We're really well off in so many positions with the development of our high school signees of a quarterback was where we felt we needed to get a guy with experience that's played at a high level and that could really benefit himself and us in this system. And that's where we felt once Darian Mensah entered the portal, we set our sights on him and we are thrilled to have him as part of our organization.
Reporter: He's a little different. He gives you a little leg stuff with his legs, right?
Mario Cristobal: He does. He's a tremendous athlete, just a high level competitor, smart, tough, accurate, can extend plays, you know, can improvise and make it happen now. And again, he's a guy that the team really enjoys being around because he's a hard worker and he's a good person. And he wants his teammates to do well.
Reporter: A couple more from Mario Cristobal, head coach of the Miami Hurricanes. This is also a Shannon Dawson thing. He has been able to take one quarterback after another and make magic. That's a pretty dang good. Both of your coordinators have kick butt.
Mario Cristobal: You know what? We've been blessed to have great coordinators, great coaches. They're even better people. That's why it works. You know, we've recruited really well. We've really overhauled the roster. And by that, I mean, also the coaching roster. We have flipped that as well. We feel we're in a place where continuity is really important and has proved to be extremely valuable. And now we have guys in the building that can continue to grow the program from the inside out, both at the player level and the coaching level. So we're in a really, really good place, one that we find ourselves more driven and more hungry than we've ever been. And again, it's time to shut up and just go to work.
Reporter: So before we go, real quick. You talked a couple years ago about, you've got to get to the point where the players are policing themselves. The players are the ones that are leading workouts. It's got to be a player-run team. Do you think you're there?
Mario Cristobal: Well, I mean, it still has to be, in my opinion, that has to happen. That has to happen, and we have seen every year we've gotten better and better and better. But it also has to be driven by a staff that sets the tone every day when they walk in the building. You know what I mean? You really can't have any weak links. You know, if you're not extremely motivated to be a Miami Hurricane, if you can't get your *** up in the morning and come in there, hair on fire, ready to help people get better, really to drive the organization, bring higher levels of intensity, of teaching, of betterment, if you're not fired up to do that, you just, you don't fit. And I think that is what's been infectious, contagious within the building, and that's, I think, has allowed us to improve our culture on a year-by-year basis.
Get it all down below:
Reporter: All right. So you get to one play on the last play of the last game of the season. You're literally right there at the precipice of like completing the turnaround. Now you worked with Nick. I always say Nick's greatest, greatest thing he did was convincing players the next year, there's new gold out there. Go get it. How do you do that?
Mario Crisotbal: Well, I think we completed the turnaround at Miami. That's undoubtedly been done. Winning a national championship is where we fell a play short, maybe a couple of plays short. And all that does, honestly, motivate you, gets you ready to go again. There's no other way to look at it on our side. My perspective, our team focus. There is no sensationalism. There is no drama. You know what? You had a kick-*** year. You did a lot of great things. You got better. You got more physical. The line of scrimmage has really come around. And when you're right there and you don't get it done, you know what? You get ****ed off and you go back to work. You shut your mouth. You don't say anything. You just go back to work.
Reporter: It's a different kind of hunger. It really is. We're talking with Coach Mario Cristobal of the Miami Hurricanes because they still have, but they got a taste of it. And now they want more of it. You shipped a lot of guys off to the NFL. Like you said, Miami has come back from a recruiting point of view and a portal.
Mario Cristobal: I mean, winning 13 games in a season is tough. You know, beating seven top 25 teams is tough. Four top 10 teams. And you know what? For us, that's what we want to be. That's what we have worked ourselves into becoming. And knowing that all that, you know what? It's tremendous progress. Now let's build on that. All right? That one's been put to bed. It's a restart button, reset, start all over with the team that's really has come around in a tremendous manner, has invested a ton of work ever since that day. And that we're extremely enthused about. But we don't make any proclamations or any predictions. We just get right at the important stuff, the work.
Reporter: So take us behind the process of the quarterback, how you and Shannon have gone from transfer to transfer and now another transfer, three straight transfers. Obviously, a lot of success with Cam, a lot of success with Carson. Now you've got Darren Mensah. How do you guys do that? How do you go from one to one to one like that?
Mario Crisotbal: Well, I think it's simple. You assess your roster and you're honest with yourself. Where do we lack what we need to play at the highest level, right? And we feel great about our quarterback room. It's just not at that level just yet. We do think it'll be there in a year, but right now we needed someone. We needed a veteran, right? You look at our other positions. We're really well off in so many positions with the development of our high school signees of a quarterback was where we felt we needed to get a guy with experience that's played at a high level and that could really benefit himself and us in this system. And that's where we felt once Darian Mensah entered the portal, we set our sights on him and we are thrilled to have him as part of our organization.
Reporter: He's a little different. He gives you a little leg stuff with his legs, right?
Mario Cristobal: He does. He's a tremendous athlete, just a high level competitor, smart, tough, accurate, can extend plays, you know, can improvise and make it happen now. And again, he's a guy that the team really enjoys being around because he's a hard worker and he's a good person. And he wants his teammates to do well.
Reporter: A couple more from Mario Cristobal, head coach of the Miami Hurricanes. This is also a Shannon Dawson thing. He has been able to take one quarterback after another and make magic. That's a pretty dang good. Both of your coordinators have kick butt.
Mario Cristobal: You know what? We've been blessed to have great coordinators, great coaches. They're even better people. That's why it works. You know, we've recruited really well. We've really overhauled the roster. And by that, I mean, also the coaching roster. We have flipped that as well. We feel we're in a place where continuity is really important and has proved to be extremely valuable. And now we have guys in the building that can continue to grow the program from the inside out, both at the player level and the coaching level. So we're in a really, really good place, one that we find ourselves more driven and more hungry than we've ever been. And again, it's time to shut up and just go to work.
Reporter: So before we go, real quick. You talked a couple years ago about, you've got to get to the point where the players are policing themselves. The players are the ones that are leading workouts. It's got to be a player-run team. Do you think you're there?
Mario Cristobal: Well, I mean, it still has to be, in my opinion, that has to happen. That has to happen, and we have seen every year we've gotten better and better and better. But it also has to be driven by a staff that sets the tone every day when they walk in the building. You know what I mean? You really can't have any weak links. You know, if you're not extremely motivated to be a Miami Hurricane, if you can't get your *** up in the morning and come in there, hair on fire, ready to help people get better, really to drive the organization, bring higher levels of intensity, of teaching, of betterment, if you're not fired up to do that, you just, you don't fit. And I think that is what's been infectious, contagious within the building, and that's, I think, has allowed us to improve our culture on a year-by-year basis.
