I'll bite.
Time will tell if Mario is the guy, or not—but a one-year sample sizing for a program that's been a complete abortion for 20 years—a bit much to play the, "I don't see it" card at this point.
35-12 at Oregon over four years, a Rose Bowl win, two Pac-12 titles, solid recruiting and development of players—and left the program in great shape for Dan Lanning—which earns him a handful of years to clean up that broken culture and roster full of soft betas who shun at the thought of hard work, or alpha coaches barking at them.
Josh Gattis was a miss, but he also wasn't Mario's first choice—so he settled for a guy that on-paper looked like a good Plan-B or Plan-C option (Broyles Award Winner, etc.)
When the guy wasn't the answer, he was gone after one season—not the timeline fans' wanted, but thems the breaks with contracts and buy-outs less than a year into a deal—and once he was fired, the conversation immediately shifted to complaining about not having a new offensive coordinator, instead of thanking the heavens this fraud was sent packing.
Kevin Steele was another second-choice guy and good name on paper as a veteran coach, but once that gift fell into Cristobal's lap when Saban brought Steele to Bama—a shift in thinking with the hiring of Lance Guidry, who looks to have a more aggressive philosophy and energy for that side of the ball (much like when Butch Davis replaced Bill Miller with the attacking Greg Schiano; and unknown back in 1999.)
Fans have whined for a year about Cristobal being stuck in his ways and running a no-frills offense—the kind that works at a Georgia or Michigan if you have a big line and all the horses—but wasn't tailored to Miami's current talent or starting quarterback.
To counter this, he hires Shannon Dawson to replace Gattis and is looking to bring an air-raid attack that doesn't abandon the ground game—which should help Tyler Van Dyke rebound from a rough 2022 campaign.
There's also been an intense focus on beefing up the offensive line; two 5-Star recruits (Mauigoa, Okunola) in 2023, as well as some quality pulls and portal action (4-Star Cohen from Bama and 3-Star Lee from UCF).
Anyone who has followed this program for decades knows the offensive line has been an Achilles heel at UM for decades, outside of a quality kid here or there and if what we saw this off-season is a sign of things to come, that position is going to become a strength for Miami in a way it hasn't ever consistently been.
Nobody was happy with 5-7, with losing to Middle Tennessee State or ****ing away games against North Carolina and Duke that were absolutely winnable—but these losses serve as proof at just how soft last year's Diaz-influenced roster really was.
To be flat against MTSU after a bye week, while still bothered by the Texas A&M loss—those players were coached up to be on guard for the upset, but still chose to not respond.
Flat against North Carolina, rallied late, couldn't pull it off and suffered a fourth consecutive loss to the Tar Heels. A week later, in a fast hole against Duke, a mid-game rally and overconfident reaction to taking a lead, before getting outscored 28-0 in final quarter and a half after Miami flat-out quit—a common-theme in 2022.
Enough off-season moves have been made to give fans some hope that a step forward will be taken in 2023. A lot of dead-weight, soft betas were run off and some pretty-good portal moves were made to go along with the seventh-ranked class (on the heels of 5-7)—which honestly should've been much higher has McClain's mom not been wooed by Deion late in the game, or Rashada buying fool's gold in Gainesville and winding up in Tempe after Miami close that door on him. Those two alone would've resulted in a #2 / #3 class.
As for all this, "been a fan forever, went to the school"—all due respect, so did your new head coach.
Miami native, alumni, two-time national champion who left a cushy gig in Oregon to come back to rebuild his alma mater.
Cristobal was set in Eugene and primed for a big 2022 with the Ducks. Would've had another huge recruiting haul in 2022 and 2023 and would've gone into his fifth season looking to take another step forward.
Instead, he came home to a program that was 118-85 (from the 2005 Peach Bowl debacle, through Diaz's final game in 2021)—which averages out to 7-5 a season for 16 consecutive years—Cristobal the third head coach in five years and sixth UM head coach in 16 years.
Miami hasn't won an ACC title in 19 tries and has one measly Coastal Division crown—on the wrong end of a 38-3 beatdown in their lone conference championship game appearance.
The bowl record since that 40-3 drubbing at the hands of LSU in that 2005 Peach? A nauseating 2-11.
Again, what did some of you really expect year one under Cristobal after 20 years of mediocrity—not to mention 15 years of Donna Shalala trying to bury football (with her "kill what you eat" approach to running the athletic department), followed by five years of Dr. Julio Frenk being hands-off and letting beta Blake James "run" the program into the ground.
Miami was literally a broke joke that was put out to pasture and living off its past reputation for DECADES before a few billionaires got involved 15 months ago and laid a new foundation, bringing Mario home and investing in a lengthy contract (knowing this is going to take time to rebuild from the ground up)—as well as hiring a real athletic director in Dan Radakovich—something this university hasn't had in almost four decades.
Long story longer, fans need to relax and let things play out instead of laying 20 years of irrelevance and incompetence at Cristobal's feet. The clock has been running on him for 15 months and the troubled program he inherited was a lot worse than it looked early on. What he hoped would be a patch and paint job wound up requiring stripping this thing down to the studs for a complete rebuild.
Again we were barely a few games into Davis' third year when our brilliant fans started flying banners—again, blaming him for past sins of a previous head coach ("from champs to chumps" thanks to Dennis Erickson's loose ship, not Davis' rebuilding efforts.)
A couple years later, Davis had the program knocking on the door of a national title (would've won it all in 2000 if getting a deserved crack at Oklahoma) and handing Larry Coker the keys of the greatest team in college football history.
Is Cristobal the second-coming of Davis? Who knows. (Great recruiter and notoriously not the best gameday guy.) But what is known—it takes time to build a winner and contender and this program was much further behind the eight ball than anyone wanted to admit during Diaz's final season and Cristobal's first.
He looked to be onto something in Oregon before leaving that gig for Miami; a massive upset at #3 Ohio State pulled off in 2021 on his watch—which he gave up to come back home, as a native, a fan, an alum and a football coach who knows the power that comes from winning big at UM... so let's take inventory on the man after the 2024 and not a moment before. Look at Mike Norvell; 6-12 going into his 2021 showdown with Miami, weeks after losing to Jacksonville State.
A year later, he goes 10-3 in his third year in Trailerhasse—fans loving him now, after wanting to run him out of town for two full seasons.
Fans need to let it this play out and need to reset their odometers as we're 15 months into this thing—not 20 years—as everything before December 2021 has zero to do with Mario Cristobal.
Year one was a massive failure. Let's see how years two and three play out. If this thing still doesn't pass the smell test by December 2024, then you can say UM hired the wrong guy— but calling him out before then is extremely premature based on the long-time State of The U.
