Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal spoke to the media after cruising to a victory over the FAMU Rattlers 77-7. Check out everything he had to say down below:
Opening statements: Good evening again. Appreciate you guys hanging out here, and certainly appreciate the crowd that showed up tonight to support the Canes. I know Thursday nights are difficult. We're a working city, but they showed up strong and they made their presence felt. I thought our guys came out quite efficiently, improved on some things that relate to physicality, execution, ball security until the end. Vought the special teams, you know, knocked that thing out a few times. Maybe not as successful, but certainly better in the front seven, played a bunch of guys. When the twos and threes went in, we felt that they sustained a relatively decent level of execution and standard. And we got an opportunity to play a lot of guys and see what probably fit and what their roles can be going forward. And nowadays in college football, that's invaluable. You have to play guys and you really can't look at a clock or the scoreboard. You just have to continue developing your roster, which I think we attempted to do that tonight.
On Luke Nickel and Dereon Coleman: It was good. It was good to see Luke go out there and sling it a little bit and run the offense like he did. Dereon, I think, was on his way to performing really, really well. We did sub down to the fours and then beyond that. So it kind of, we didn't have the same supporting cast, but once our first group looked like an excellent job. And Dereon went in there and he did it.
On the status of Xavier Lucas: Yeah, Xavier got hurt last game, and he's going to miss approximately a month, and hopefully that'll be it. We'll get him back. OJ's a little bit more extensive than that, and we lost Jaboree in preseason. So certainly it's not what you want. It's a situation that we haven't really had here since we've been here, but we are here now, and we're making the appropriate, I would say, making our guys that showed versatility throughout fall camp. They're going to chance to show what they've worked on, and they showed up well tonight. We expect them to be really good players for us.
On the offense in the first half: Efficient. Really, really efficient. I don't think they had an opportunity on third down, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of explosive plays. I thought we protected well. There were some explosive runs also. I thought we ran a mixture of tempo, speed breaks, some sugar huddle stuff. We did a lot. We did a lot, and just want to see our guys play fast and free and improve. That was the most important thing. 1-0 is always the goal, but in college football every single week you better get better. And I think we, in some respect, we did that tonight.
On getting the younger guys in the game: It's invaluable. I can't emphasize that enough. You would love to have another quarter of football and not even worry about the scoreboard. And I adamantly support playing players deep into games that have to be developed. Those guys that played tonight, they've worked just as hard as everybody else, and those guys are itching for time. And unless you put them in the game, you're never going to find out what they can do when the lights come on. So we had that opportunity tonight. We took advantage of it as best we could and certainly looking forward to watching the tape and seeing what kind of moves and what type of opportunities to create for some of these guys.
On Bryce Fitzgerald at corner and J.J. Dunnigan: The versatility that Bryce showed in camp has shown since he's been here. I thought some of J.J.'s play since he's gotten here also warrants him playing there. We wanted to try. We kept Omar at nickel for the most part, or else we kept Poyser at strong. But you say that, and then you look at some of our packages in dime and whatnot, he's playing different things. So it's as simple as the opportunity to play, and we have a couple different combinations that we feel strongly about. That's what we went with to start the game. After that, I think if you watch the tape, you'll see a couple other combinations that were pretty effective too.
On Somourian Wingo: Explosive guy. He's an elite human being, hard worker. His teammates love him, a lot of ability. He is a guy that we're going to continue to ramp up. He's got to play, like, for us, like now. He's one of those guys that we have identified that needs to be pushed, needs to be put in situations during, critical times of the game and be counted on, and to do so he's got to keep proving in practice. He has thus far to a certain extent, but we're really excited about him and really, really pleased with the way he came out and played tonight.
On the starters coming out of the game: Well, the most important thing is, we have an extra day to prepare for Wake Forest. But, an extra day, if your off schedule, is not the best thing in the world if you don't get enough plays throughout the course of tonight's game. And I believe the ones went in for 28 to 31 plays, and I was a little concerned that we weren't getting enough plays to have the extra day. But either way, when they went in there, they did perform at a high level. And when it was time to come out, there was no pushback. There wasn't. And they know we keep our pads on. This is not, where you take your pads off and it's vacation time. Keep your pads on. And I thought probably the best way, the best part I think that represents our culture and what we're trying to work to all the time was that I think Malachi, someone said, Hey, Malachi needs a couple more yards to have a 100-yard game, and that means a lot as it relates to postseason accolades, awards, whatnot, and he's like, Coach, I want to see my teammates play. I want to see them get better. So he had absolutely zero interest in any type of personal gain. And I think that was universal. I think everyone felt the same way.
On the run blocking: I thought we fit our double teams better and sustained our one-on-ones better in our gap scheme and tight zone and wide zone stuff. The boxes were a little cleaner. The numbers and angles could achieve good leverage in certain formations. It was our guys playing together one more game and maybe we stuck with a combination a little bit longer and over time those guys will keep getting better.
Opening statements: Good evening again. Appreciate you guys hanging out here, and certainly appreciate the crowd that showed up tonight to support the Canes. I know Thursday nights are difficult. We're a working city, but they showed up strong and they made their presence felt. I thought our guys came out quite efficiently, improved on some things that relate to physicality, execution, ball security until the end. Vought the special teams, you know, knocked that thing out a few times. Maybe not as successful, but certainly better in the front seven, played a bunch of guys. When the twos and threes went in, we felt that they sustained a relatively decent level of execution and standard. And we got an opportunity to play a lot of guys and see what probably fit and what their roles can be going forward. And nowadays in college football, that's invaluable. You have to play guys and you really can't look at a clock or the scoreboard. You just have to continue developing your roster, which I think we attempted to do that tonight.
On Luke Nickel and Dereon Coleman: It was good. It was good to see Luke go out there and sling it a little bit and run the offense like he did. Dereon, I think, was on his way to performing really, really well. We did sub down to the fours and then beyond that. So it kind of, we didn't have the same supporting cast, but once our first group looked like an excellent job. And Dereon went in there and he did it.
On the status of Xavier Lucas: Yeah, Xavier got hurt last game, and he's going to miss approximately a month, and hopefully that'll be it. We'll get him back. OJ's a little bit more extensive than that, and we lost Jaboree in preseason. So certainly it's not what you want. It's a situation that we haven't really had here since we've been here, but we are here now, and we're making the appropriate, I would say, making our guys that showed versatility throughout fall camp. They're going to chance to show what they've worked on, and they showed up well tonight. We expect them to be really good players for us.
On the offense in the first half: Efficient. Really, really efficient. I don't think they had an opportunity on third down, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of explosive plays. I thought we protected well. There were some explosive runs also. I thought we ran a mixture of tempo, speed breaks, some sugar huddle stuff. We did a lot. We did a lot, and just want to see our guys play fast and free and improve. That was the most important thing. 1-0 is always the goal, but in college football every single week you better get better. And I think we, in some respect, we did that tonight.
On getting the younger guys in the game: It's invaluable. I can't emphasize that enough. You would love to have another quarter of football and not even worry about the scoreboard. And I adamantly support playing players deep into games that have to be developed. Those guys that played tonight, they've worked just as hard as everybody else, and those guys are itching for time. And unless you put them in the game, you're never going to find out what they can do when the lights come on. So we had that opportunity tonight. We took advantage of it as best we could and certainly looking forward to watching the tape and seeing what kind of moves and what type of opportunities to create for some of these guys.
On Bryce Fitzgerald at corner and J.J. Dunnigan: The versatility that Bryce showed in camp has shown since he's been here. I thought some of J.J.'s play since he's gotten here also warrants him playing there. We wanted to try. We kept Omar at nickel for the most part, or else we kept Poyser at strong. But you say that, and then you look at some of our packages in dime and whatnot, he's playing different things. So it's as simple as the opportunity to play, and we have a couple different combinations that we feel strongly about. That's what we went with to start the game. After that, I think if you watch the tape, you'll see a couple other combinations that were pretty effective too.
On Somourian Wingo: Explosive guy. He's an elite human being, hard worker. His teammates love him, a lot of ability. He is a guy that we're going to continue to ramp up. He's got to play, like, for us, like now. He's one of those guys that we have identified that needs to be pushed, needs to be put in situations during, critical times of the game and be counted on, and to do so he's got to keep proving in practice. He has thus far to a certain extent, but we're really excited about him and really, really pleased with the way he came out and played tonight.
On the starters coming out of the game: Well, the most important thing is, we have an extra day to prepare for Wake Forest. But, an extra day, if your off schedule, is not the best thing in the world if you don't get enough plays throughout the course of tonight's game. And I believe the ones went in for 28 to 31 plays, and I was a little concerned that we weren't getting enough plays to have the extra day. But either way, when they went in there, they did perform at a high level. And when it was time to come out, there was no pushback. There wasn't. And they know we keep our pads on. This is not, where you take your pads off and it's vacation time. Keep your pads on. And I thought probably the best way, the best part I think that represents our culture and what we're trying to work to all the time was that I think Malachi, someone said, Hey, Malachi needs a couple more yards to have a 100-yard game, and that means a lot as it relates to postseason accolades, awards, whatnot, and he's like, Coach, I want to see my teammates play. I want to see them get better. So he had absolutely zero interest in any type of personal gain. And I think that was universal. I think everyone felt the same way.
On the run blocking: I thought we fit our double teams better and sustained our one-on-ones better in our gap scheme and tight zone and wide zone stuff. The boxes were a little cleaner. The numbers and angles could achieve good leverage in certain formations. It was our guys playing together one more game and maybe we stuck with a combination a little bit longer and over time those guys will keep getting better.
