We are now almost two months into the Mario Cristobal era.
Going in, we knew he would be a phenomenal recruiter. That’s always been his calling card. We knew we would not have to worry about that and so far he’s done an excellent job in that regard. No complaints.
What we knew we would have to worry about - as was discussed by many here when he was hired including D$ - was his coaching. He’s not a savant. He’s not a QB guru. He doesn’t have a cutting edge scheme. He’s not a good game day coach. Mario would have to rely heavily on his assistants to get our program back to the pinnacle. And to do that, he was allegedly given one of the biggest assistant coaching pools in the country. So we should be good, right?
Here is where are we almost two months later:
Cristobal has hired four coaches. Three of them are transplants from Oregon. The other is a 34 year old RB coach with two years of P5 experience.
Of the three coaches from Oregon, one is Mario’s best friend, one has never coached on the East Coast and one is actively entertaining the idea of leaving for a lateral positron at another school.
We don’t have an offensive coordinator, having been turned down at least once, maybe twice.
We don’t have a defensive coordinator.
For someone who absolutely needed to nail his assistant coaching hires, it has not been a good start for Mario. I don’t think that’s really disputable.
Obviously, that can change quickly. Mario could go out and hire two grand slams at OC + DC and this will all be forgotten.
But at this moment, I think it is absolutely fair to be critical of how things have gone so far.
If that’s “annoying” or “pointless”, so be it. I just call it like I see it.
