Miami head coach Mario Cristobal joined Kevin Clark on the "This is Football" podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on the program. A transcript of that interview is below.
Kevin Clark: One of the best coaches in football, one of the best developers of NFL talent on the planet. I want to start here, Mario — when you took over, you changed your flight to the day of the draft to make sure a guy got drafted. Jonathan Ford, late to the Packers. But now you have three first-round picks, a bunch of guys — Keionte Scott would probably be a first-rounder if he were two years younger, Markel Bell is going to play like a first-round pick. How did you get to a point where Miami was a pipeline for NFL talent, where that had dried up in Coral Gables?
Mario Cristobal: I appreciate the kind words. Humbled by your words. We've got a long ways to go — we feel like we're just getting started. It did start with the people. It's always been the philosophy that the bigs lead the way. The way that we lift, the way that we eat, our offseason and in-season training regiment for our guys allows them to develop at a high level. We have great coaches — great coaches that go get highly motivated, talented guys that go to work. God knows we work. We get after it in a big-time way. Time, process, being a good person and busting your *** — that pays off.
Kevin Clark: I talked to a GM at the start of the NIL portal era and he said the number one thing that has changed with athletes coming in is they haven't necessarily been "de-recruited." Ten years ago, Kirby, Saban, everybody — you'd get five-star guys in, they'd start fifth on the depth chart, and you'd say, "Hey, we were kissing your butt in recruiting, now we're going to build you back up a little harder." Now if a guy is fifth on the linebacker depth chart, he might say, "I'm out after one year." How do you balance being tough on these guys while knowing they've got an escape hatch they didn't have 10 or 15 years ago?
Mario Cristobal: The balance is just being real. I really believe if you have to change the way that you coach — if you have to change your genuine way of treating people — you were full of crap to begin with and you weren't coaching in a genuine manner. We haven't changed the way we coach or how we approach people. We acknowledge that there are escape routes if people don't want to wait, but it's also been proven that at least in our system, if you are ready to play you will play and you have your best chance for success. You always have three to four deep of who you're going to go get in case a guy decides to leave. But you don't change the regimen. You certainly try to get people to play as early as they possibly can, but even that's not a change — we've always done that anyway. Teaching and coaching is really, really important. When you hire coaches, don't just get guys that have the gift of gab and can sweet-talk their way into signing guys — they have to actually develop them. What's the track record? What are you doing for these guys? For us, that's what we're most proud of. There's validation and proof of concept with what we've done.
Kevin Clark: Quick whip-around with the three first-rounders. Sisi Mauigoa — I live in Giants country, everybody's excited about this guy. What are the Giants getting?
Mario Cristobal: An absolute monster. Relentless worker. It's the same for all three — monster, relentless worker, crazy non-stop competitor. I should pull up on tape how many times they've gone up against each other over the past three years, because they seek each other out every single day in practice — two-minute drill, you name it. That's what made our team better. Games for them — when they heard opponents kind of downtalking them entering a game, it was like music to their ears, because they know on a daily basis they're going against the real-deal dudes.
Kevin Clark: Does it **** you off when Rueben Bain starts falling to 15? You're in the green room — does it start to get to you, or do you say, "Hey, a really good team is about to get a stud"?
Mario Cristobal: It's like loading more dynamite. The guy was already fixing to explode and then they added fuel to the wrong car. You're looking at three guys that really couldn't care less about anything except whooping your *** on a daily basis. And then off the field — complete gentlemen. I do think it was a perfect scheme fit. They call him Tampa Bain now. BS is going to get those rushing angles schemed up.
Kevin Clark: Someone said at the press conference afterwards, "Is it going to stay with you for the rest of your career that the Dolphins passed on you?" And Jason Licht stops him and goes, "You know the Saints passed on you too." Just to get him revved up. He seemingly does really thrive on disrespect.
Mario Cristobal: In essence, he's internally motivated. But he won't refuse or reject any extra external stuff — it's a full tank, a full tank of positive anger where he likes to get after it. So if you want to add it to him, more power to you. And you know what he knows more than anything? He knows that just being ****ed off and feeling a little disrespected doesn't guarantee him a single positive play. He knows he's going to have to adjust to a higher level of competition and a different league, and he's ready to do so.
Kevin Clark: And then Mesidor with the Chargers — Jim Harbaugh understands tough football. The growth Mesidor has had, changing positions, changing body types. He went through the entire football journey at Miami after coming in through the portal from West Virginia.
Mario Cristobal: That guy — all three of them — it's hard to find better people, better human beings, and people that attack their craft like they do. I know it's kind of boring for an interview like this, but they just care about training and kicking your butt. They've had a tremendous impact on the team. When I bring in guys one-on-one, it's like, "What are you doing to look like what these guys did throughout their process?" He's so versatile — he's even played nose tackle for us. He's dropped in coverage, played the three, the five, the nine. He gets in and out of stuff. He's like one of those Avatar, Raptor types — just finds a way to explode and make a great play.
Kevin Clark: I want to talk about how much the college football world is changing. The SEC had four trench players in the first round. You guys have three. The Big Ten has won a couple national championships. What's been the biggest change in the college football landscape over the past five years?
Mario Cristobal: NIL — now everybody can pay. That's what's made it most different. The imbalances — we'll leave it at that — are no longer a factor. Everybody can. I do think the retirement of Coach Saban changes things. Alabama while he was there was on such a dominant run. You look at the line-of-scrimmage play now — so many different teams with crossover tape. We're preparing for Notre Dame game one last year, they look awesome. You look at their playoff run — they dominated Georgia up front at the line of scrimmage, much more physical. They went and played Texas, played unbelievably well. After three or four years of recruiting, where do we match up? You're looking at a really tight, slug-it-out game at the line of scrimmage. The landscape has changed. There's no team, and especially no conference, that has separated itself as it relates to talent at the line of scrimmage. We don't look at labels, logos, conferences, all that junk. It's about each team and it's about each year, and it's never been more evident than it is now.
Kevin Clark: The biggest thing now is a lot of these five-stars, if they don't get on the field the first two years, they leave. That wasn't the case in 2010 or even 2015 — you'd just hoard five-stars, have four of them on the depth chart at one position. That depth just isn't there anymore. The 247 talent composite is as close as it's ever been.
Mario Cristobal: No doubt — the days of hoarding talent are over. And the benefit of hoarding that talent used to be, yeah, you have all these guys, but just as importantly, the teams you're playing against don't have your third and fourth option. They're down to their fourth, fifth, sixth. That gap has been closed tremendously and will continue to close until there's some kind of parameter set. It's adapt or die. That simple. Adapt or die, invest, or go do something else.
Kevin Clark: You mentioned how much the parameters keep changing. Everybody's talking about College Football Playoff expansion. Where are you on this? If you could make January look a certain way, what would you do?
Mario Cristobal: Just move everything up. Finish as early as possible in January so there's time to put together a team. We don't complain about having the opportunity to play in a game of that caliber, but the portal had already been sucked dry and you had to scramble — figure out which guys are going in, what's left out there that you're willing to go after, while still trying to hold it together for that final game. Just move everything up. I have one bye week, let's roll. I'm not for the 14-team thing — why play a regular season then? And I'm certainly not for automatic bids where a conference just gets one — why? Put it on the field. Go win. The guys that deserve it get in, and figure it out from there.
Kevin Clark: It sounds like you do have answers — one through 12, straight ranks, 12 best teams, lace them up.
Mario Cristobal: I like that. I do like that a lot.
Kevin Clark: You solved it right there on the spot. Let's talk about the 2026 team. Everybody's talking about Malachi Toney and his amazing season. You might have one of the best quarterbacks in the country in OJ Frederique, who was a three-star coming onto campus. What will be the difference between the 2025 Canes and the 2026 Canes?
Mario Cristobal: Let's go find out. Honestly — walk around our place, there are no signs, no proclamations. It's shut up and work. Our identity, what we want to be, that's going to be put on film, and from there it goes to the public court of opinion. Put it on tape, show it, display it, exhibit it in everything you do — that's what we will be. We're super, beyond fired up and enthused about the guys we have coming back, but there's no value in proclaiming anything except: we have a lot to prove.
Kevin Clark: Rapid fire — best player in the draft that you guys played against last year.
Mario Cristobal: There's so many good players. All the Indiana guys, the Ohio State guys. Indiana had a lot of good players. Those receivers were really good. Caleb Downs I thought was a phenom — a guy that can target in close space and get people on the ground. The receiver at Louisville — Chris Bell — is an awesome player. A lot of guys. You know what? The guys we practice against every day — those are my favorite players in the whole draft right there.
Kevin Clark: Biggest story right now in college football as far as the way the game is actually played on the field?
Mario Cristobal: Physicality is once again reigning supreme in my opinion. Violence at the line of scrimmage. And the number of possessions is getting smaller and smaller, so the value of explosive plays — ball security and ball disruption on the flip side — those things are getting more and more invaluable because you're just not touching the ball as often. Yards per play becomes a bigger factor in the efficiency of your offense.
Kevin Clark: Now that Coach Saban is a media member, how much is he able to be a sounding board for you?
Mario Cristobal: Every now and then we talk. I'm not one of his stepsons like all these other guys. But certainly he and Miss Terry have been incredibly kind — she's way cooler than he is, but he's always been great. I know he's really busy with the media, all those car dealerships he's got. He's still really competitive in just about everything he does. He was awesome to me and the family. Always grateful to him.
Kevin Clark: All right, Mario Cristobal, we'll see you during training camp. Thanks so much for coming on This Is Football.
Mario Cristobal: Appreciate you, man. Thank you for having me.
This article is sponsored by KashKick, one of the biggest apps in America. Give your free time a raise and get paid to browse, play games, and answer surveys. Join today at KashKick.
Kevin Clark: One of the best coaches in football, one of the best developers of NFL talent on the planet. I want to start here, Mario — when you took over, you changed your flight to the day of the draft to make sure a guy got drafted. Jonathan Ford, late to the Packers. But now you have three first-round picks, a bunch of guys — Keionte Scott would probably be a first-rounder if he were two years younger, Markel Bell is going to play like a first-round pick. How did you get to a point where Miami was a pipeline for NFL talent, where that had dried up in Coral Gables?
Mario Cristobal: I appreciate the kind words. Humbled by your words. We've got a long ways to go — we feel like we're just getting started. It did start with the people. It's always been the philosophy that the bigs lead the way. The way that we lift, the way that we eat, our offseason and in-season training regiment for our guys allows them to develop at a high level. We have great coaches — great coaches that go get highly motivated, talented guys that go to work. God knows we work. We get after it in a big-time way. Time, process, being a good person and busting your *** — that pays off.
Kevin Clark: I talked to a GM at the start of the NIL portal era and he said the number one thing that has changed with athletes coming in is they haven't necessarily been "de-recruited." Ten years ago, Kirby, Saban, everybody — you'd get five-star guys in, they'd start fifth on the depth chart, and you'd say, "Hey, we were kissing your butt in recruiting, now we're going to build you back up a little harder." Now if a guy is fifth on the linebacker depth chart, he might say, "I'm out after one year." How do you balance being tough on these guys while knowing they've got an escape hatch they didn't have 10 or 15 years ago?
Mario Cristobal: The balance is just being real. I really believe if you have to change the way that you coach — if you have to change your genuine way of treating people — you were full of crap to begin with and you weren't coaching in a genuine manner. We haven't changed the way we coach or how we approach people. We acknowledge that there are escape routes if people don't want to wait, but it's also been proven that at least in our system, if you are ready to play you will play and you have your best chance for success. You always have three to four deep of who you're going to go get in case a guy decides to leave. But you don't change the regimen. You certainly try to get people to play as early as they possibly can, but even that's not a change — we've always done that anyway. Teaching and coaching is really, really important. When you hire coaches, don't just get guys that have the gift of gab and can sweet-talk their way into signing guys — they have to actually develop them. What's the track record? What are you doing for these guys? For us, that's what we're most proud of. There's validation and proof of concept with what we've done.
Kevin Clark: Quick whip-around with the three first-rounders. Sisi Mauigoa — I live in Giants country, everybody's excited about this guy. What are the Giants getting?
Mario Cristobal: An absolute monster. Relentless worker. It's the same for all three — monster, relentless worker, crazy non-stop competitor. I should pull up on tape how many times they've gone up against each other over the past three years, because they seek each other out every single day in practice — two-minute drill, you name it. That's what made our team better. Games for them — when they heard opponents kind of downtalking them entering a game, it was like music to their ears, because they know on a daily basis they're going against the real-deal dudes.
Kevin Clark: Does it **** you off when Rueben Bain starts falling to 15? You're in the green room — does it start to get to you, or do you say, "Hey, a really good team is about to get a stud"?
Mario Cristobal: It's like loading more dynamite. The guy was already fixing to explode and then they added fuel to the wrong car. You're looking at three guys that really couldn't care less about anything except whooping your *** on a daily basis. And then off the field — complete gentlemen. I do think it was a perfect scheme fit. They call him Tampa Bain now. BS is going to get those rushing angles schemed up.
Kevin Clark: Someone said at the press conference afterwards, "Is it going to stay with you for the rest of your career that the Dolphins passed on you?" And Jason Licht stops him and goes, "You know the Saints passed on you too." Just to get him revved up. He seemingly does really thrive on disrespect.
Mario Cristobal: In essence, he's internally motivated. But he won't refuse or reject any extra external stuff — it's a full tank, a full tank of positive anger where he likes to get after it. So if you want to add it to him, more power to you. And you know what he knows more than anything? He knows that just being ****ed off and feeling a little disrespected doesn't guarantee him a single positive play. He knows he's going to have to adjust to a higher level of competition and a different league, and he's ready to do so.
Kevin Clark: And then Mesidor with the Chargers — Jim Harbaugh understands tough football. The growth Mesidor has had, changing positions, changing body types. He went through the entire football journey at Miami after coming in through the portal from West Virginia.
Mario Cristobal: That guy — all three of them — it's hard to find better people, better human beings, and people that attack their craft like they do. I know it's kind of boring for an interview like this, but they just care about training and kicking your butt. They've had a tremendous impact on the team. When I bring in guys one-on-one, it's like, "What are you doing to look like what these guys did throughout their process?" He's so versatile — he's even played nose tackle for us. He's dropped in coverage, played the three, the five, the nine. He gets in and out of stuff. He's like one of those Avatar, Raptor types — just finds a way to explode and make a great play.
Kevin Clark: I want to talk about how much the college football world is changing. The SEC had four trench players in the first round. You guys have three. The Big Ten has won a couple national championships. What's been the biggest change in the college football landscape over the past five years?
Mario Cristobal: NIL — now everybody can pay. That's what's made it most different. The imbalances — we'll leave it at that — are no longer a factor. Everybody can. I do think the retirement of Coach Saban changes things. Alabama while he was there was on such a dominant run. You look at the line-of-scrimmage play now — so many different teams with crossover tape. We're preparing for Notre Dame game one last year, they look awesome. You look at their playoff run — they dominated Georgia up front at the line of scrimmage, much more physical. They went and played Texas, played unbelievably well. After three or four years of recruiting, where do we match up? You're looking at a really tight, slug-it-out game at the line of scrimmage. The landscape has changed. There's no team, and especially no conference, that has separated itself as it relates to talent at the line of scrimmage. We don't look at labels, logos, conferences, all that junk. It's about each team and it's about each year, and it's never been more evident than it is now.
Kevin Clark: The biggest thing now is a lot of these five-stars, if they don't get on the field the first two years, they leave. That wasn't the case in 2010 or even 2015 — you'd just hoard five-stars, have four of them on the depth chart at one position. That depth just isn't there anymore. The 247 talent composite is as close as it's ever been.
Mario Cristobal: No doubt — the days of hoarding talent are over. And the benefit of hoarding that talent used to be, yeah, you have all these guys, but just as importantly, the teams you're playing against don't have your third and fourth option. They're down to their fourth, fifth, sixth. That gap has been closed tremendously and will continue to close until there's some kind of parameter set. It's adapt or die. That simple. Adapt or die, invest, or go do something else.
Kevin Clark: You mentioned how much the parameters keep changing. Everybody's talking about College Football Playoff expansion. Where are you on this? If you could make January look a certain way, what would you do?
Mario Cristobal: Just move everything up. Finish as early as possible in January so there's time to put together a team. We don't complain about having the opportunity to play in a game of that caliber, but the portal had already been sucked dry and you had to scramble — figure out which guys are going in, what's left out there that you're willing to go after, while still trying to hold it together for that final game. Just move everything up. I have one bye week, let's roll. I'm not for the 14-team thing — why play a regular season then? And I'm certainly not for automatic bids where a conference just gets one — why? Put it on the field. Go win. The guys that deserve it get in, and figure it out from there.
Kevin Clark: It sounds like you do have answers — one through 12, straight ranks, 12 best teams, lace them up.
Mario Cristobal: I like that. I do like that a lot.
Kevin Clark: You solved it right there on the spot. Let's talk about the 2026 team. Everybody's talking about Malachi Toney and his amazing season. You might have one of the best quarterbacks in the country in OJ Frederique, who was a three-star coming onto campus. What will be the difference between the 2025 Canes and the 2026 Canes?
Mario Cristobal: Let's go find out. Honestly — walk around our place, there are no signs, no proclamations. It's shut up and work. Our identity, what we want to be, that's going to be put on film, and from there it goes to the public court of opinion. Put it on tape, show it, display it, exhibit it in everything you do — that's what we will be. We're super, beyond fired up and enthused about the guys we have coming back, but there's no value in proclaiming anything except: we have a lot to prove.
Kevin Clark: Rapid fire — best player in the draft that you guys played against last year.
Mario Cristobal: There's so many good players. All the Indiana guys, the Ohio State guys. Indiana had a lot of good players. Those receivers were really good. Caleb Downs I thought was a phenom — a guy that can target in close space and get people on the ground. The receiver at Louisville — Chris Bell — is an awesome player. A lot of guys. You know what? The guys we practice against every day — those are my favorite players in the whole draft right there.
Kevin Clark: Biggest story right now in college football as far as the way the game is actually played on the field?
Mario Cristobal: Physicality is once again reigning supreme in my opinion. Violence at the line of scrimmage. And the number of possessions is getting smaller and smaller, so the value of explosive plays — ball security and ball disruption on the flip side — those things are getting more and more invaluable because you're just not touching the ball as often. Yards per play becomes a bigger factor in the efficiency of your offense.
Kevin Clark: Now that Coach Saban is a media member, how much is he able to be a sounding board for you?
Mario Cristobal: Every now and then we talk. I'm not one of his stepsons like all these other guys. But certainly he and Miss Terry have been incredibly kind — she's way cooler than he is, but he's always been great. I know he's really busy with the media, all those car dealerships he's got. He's still really competitive in just about everything he does. He was awesome to me and the family. Always grateful to him.
Kevin Clark: All right, Mario Cristobal, we'll see you during training camp. Thanks so much for coming on This Is Football.
Mario Cristobal: Appreciate you, man. Thank you for having me.
This article is sponsored by KashKick, one of the biggest apps in America. Give your free time a raise and get paid to browse, play games, and answer surveys. Join today at KashKick.
