Duke was 3-9 last season. First year coach

Yup. Duke also has a program full of smart kids, hard workers and overachievers who respond to quality leadership—while the program was stable for well over a decade under a quality human being and coach in David Cutcliffe, whose time was up, which resulted in a smooth handoff to Mike Elko, who is the right fit guy. (While Miami had been a revolving door of head coaches—Cristobal now UM's fifth head coach since Cutcliffe was hired at Duke in 2008; Randy Shannon's second year as head coach for the Canes. Stability matters.)

This was also the first year for RIley Leonard at starting quarterback, which in itself was a massive upgrade and would've resulted in a few extra wins even without the coaching change.

Miami's 2022 roster was loaded with lazy, entitled underachievers who recoiled at the thought of hard work—while rushing to social media after the game to post Getty Images of them losing, or off to a street corner to film the latest TikTok dance craze—kids part of the loose ship that Manny Diaz run and guys who loved posing with chains and rings while teams like Alabama, Clemson, North Carolina and Michigan State were kicking their teeth in.

News flash, if Miami had Duke's roster this year they'd have been better than 5-7—as every kid in that locker room would've responded to Mario Cristobal just at they did Mike Elko.

Put Elko a top the Canes program this year and he'd have had a 5-7 roster, as well—as this team was full of jokers, clowns and lazy, low IQ football players last fall.
😂😂🙄🙄🙄
 
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kirby is a DC tho so if all else fails, his calling card will always be elite and it always has even when the O stunk for years at UGA and held them back (he went through multiple OCs)
More specifically a db coach so his expertise was specific to a position just like Mario. And while Kirby was DC at Bama Saban was all over that unit.
 
Thats why some people wanted other candidates(i wanted mario) because most of them bring something of their own, mario will have to get his hires right multiple times which is tough
And those people arguments are flawed. Diaz was a DC, only brought a guy what would run his scheme.

Richt was an OC, same thing.

Golden was a DC, That fat **** Dnofrio stay on why? Because he ran his defense.
 
This was one of the more confusing and disappointing things to watch this season. Mario has been a head coach at 3 different programs now. His last school, Oregon, is a perennial top 25 (or higher) program. He's coached in some big games against good and elite competition. He's won some big games and he's has lost some big games. The concept of being a head coach is not new for him. He's experienced. That is why it's difficult for me to understand why he looked like a deer lost in headlights almost every game this season.
To me, it is a bigger problem than Gattis, Steele, or any other underwhelming coordinator/assistant coach. Mario looks completely CLUELESS on the sidelines. If I didn't know any better, I would think he's the first time HC, not Elko. The dude can't even call a timeout correctly. I don't understand it.
 
TCU is on the College Football Playoff with a new HC after going 5-7 in 2021. But he needs his own guysm, bro.
Somehow, Sonny Dykes got a bunch of three star guys who had gone 16-18 the last three years to play much better and to completely buy in. He didn’t need to purge the roster. He got players to buy in because the system his staff teaches is successful. If you tell kids “do A,B,C” and it works, they’ll respect you. If you try to force things that don’t work, kids are going to turn on you.

No surprise TCU has signed their best recruiting class ever this year.
 
To me, it is a bigger problem than Gattis, Steele, or any other underwhelming coordinator/assistant coach. Mario looks completely CLUELESS on the sidelines. If I didn't know any better, I would think he's the first time HC, not Elko. The dude can't even call a timeout correctly. I don't understand it.
Just hire real coordinators and let Mario stay home and recruit on game day
 
To me, it is a bigger problem than Gattis, Steele, or any other underwhelming coordinator/assistant coach. Mario looks completely CLUELESS on the sidelines. If I didn't know any better, I would think he's the first time HC, not Elko. The dude can't even call a timeout correctly. I don't understand it.
Dude had bigger deer in the headlights stare at halftime of the MTSU game than Diaz ever had.
 
Dude had bigger deer in the headlights stare at halftime of the MTSU game than Diaz ever had.
Dummy Feeling Dumb GIF


This was Mario as MTSU, Duke and Pitt were embarrassing us. At home, nonetheless.
 
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At this point the horse has decomposed to dust and people on here are still trying to beat it.
 
Yup. Duke also has a program full of smart kids, hard workers and overachievers who respond to quality leadership—while the program was stable for well over a decade under a quality human being and coach in David Cutcliffe, whose time was up, which resulted in a smooth handoff to Mike Elko, who is the right fit guy. (While Miami had been a revolving door of head coaches—Cristobal now UM's fifth head coach since Cutcliffe was hired at Duke in 2008; Randy Shannon's second year as head coach for the Canes. Stability matters.)

This was also the first year for RIley Leonard at starting quarterback, which in itself was a massive upgrade and would've resulted in a few extra wins even without the coaching change.

Miami's 2022 roster was loaded with lazy, entitled underachievers who recoiled at the thought of hard work—while rushing to social media after the game to post Getty Images of them losing, or off to a street corner to film the latest TikTok dance craze—kids part of the loose ship that Manny Diaz run and guys who loved posing with chains and rings while teams like Alabama, Clemson, North Carolina and Michigan State were kicking their teeth in.

News flash, if Miami had Duke's roster this year they'd have been better than 5-7—as every kid in that locker room would've responded to Mario Cristobal just at they did Mike Elko.

Put Elko a top the Canes program this year and he'd have had a 5-7 roster, as well—as this team was full of jokers, clowns and lazy, low IQ football players last fall.
1672338395950.png
 
Somehow, Sonny Dykes got a bunch of three star guys who had gone 16-18 the last three years to play much better and to completely buy in. He didn’t need to purge the roster. He got players to buy in because the system his staff teaches is successful. If you tell kids “do A,B,C” and it works, they’ll respect you. If you try to force things that don’t work, kids are going to turn on you.

No surprise TCU has signed their best recruiting class ever this year.
Sonny a legend tho..I think our problem was we related the money spent to Mario’s coaching acumen. But that was just his market
 
duke doesn't have the talent tho, how are they winning???????????????????????????????????????????? they only have 2 blue chip recruits and we had 42 this year.
 
Somehow, Sonny Dykes got a bunch of three star guys who had gone 16-18 the last three years to play much better and to completely buy in. He didn’t need to purge the roster. He got players to buy in because the system his staff teaches is successful. If you tell kids “do A,B,C” and it works, they’ll respect you. If you try to force things that don’t work, kids are going to turn on you.

No surprise TCU has signed their best recruiting class ever this year.
Exactly. Well said.
 
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it is easy to criticize Mario when you see a guy like Elko do what he did or some of the other teams that succeed on an ad hoc basis, but in my opinion the rot is so deep here that it just couldn't be fixed it one year. practically every non traditional power P5 and even some G5 teams have had at least one year of great success since we last made a big bowl. frankly its inexplicable how inept we have been since 2004 or 2005. the most mediocre programs have put together a good year and we can't even win a low level bowl game let alone get to a major bowl. frankly I have a hard time blaming Mario when I look at the big picture of what's been going on over the past 15 years or so.

you want Mario to waive a magic wand and do what hasn't been done at miami sans one season under richt in which we also ended up chocking at the end of the year. this is a longer term fix.
 
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The recruiting acumen and program building experience were factors in combination that was something most other available HC's didn't have but MC did which made him a preferred candidate. It's definitely not debatable he doesn't bring us any schematic advantages so his coordinator hires had to hit and he massively failed on offense specifically. He needs to eventually land the right coordinators and adjust his philosophy to ultimately succeed. His best model I think is Kirby, a guy who consistently recruits top 5 and made slight modifications to his overall ground & pound leanings. The difference though is Kirby inherited a much better roster at Jawja than Mario did here so unless we can Gattis and replace him with a home run hire we're looking at another year or two of mediocrity until this thing truly starts to roll thanks to the talent advantage MC will eventually accrue.
All true but kirby was a DC for 7 years. So he brings his defensive mind which is probably top 3. Recruiting is for sure #1 but at the highest level when the talent is in the same ball park it comes down to coaching. I think the blueprint for mario is dabo but a wider net with recruiting cause of location and the difference places mario has been
 
And those people arguments are flawed. Diaz was a DC, only brought a guy what would run his scheme.

Richt was an OC, same thing.

Golden was a DC, That fat **** Dnofrio stay on why? Because he ran his defense.
Its not flawed because we brought in subpar coaches lol that proves my point. You cant give D+ effort in something and then call it flawed. There’s way more examples of a HC bringing his own and it working. Saban Kirby Lincoln Harbaugh Dykes Heupel etc..
 
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