On Saturday afternoon, Miami Hurricanes head football coach Mario Cristobal joined the Pat McAfee show on ESPN, reflecting on fall practices and the team. Check out everything he had to say on the podcast down below:
On training camp: This is not last year's team. Last year's accomplishments, and it's about as hot and as muggy as it can get, and we have taken everybody, every player, every coach all the way to the edge, and we still got two weeks to do some more, and there's been a lot of progress. We're getting done with physical camp. We knocked each other around really good, and we do feel like we're building more competitive depth, but miles to go.
On managing culture and distractions: I think two things. Number one, you either create distractions, or you just don't. I don't buy into that. There's a lot of distractions down here. You go on a high dive in a bikini underwear, that might cause distractions, but you either choose distractions, or you choose not to have them. Rueben Bain is still on the thread with all the defensive linemen, and he's in on tape. He's in on drill work, and he is absolutely ripping people's butts if they ain't doing it to the standard. And I think you're getting the same from Keionte Scott, C.J. Daniels, Francis Mauigoa. So it's almost like these guys have taken it upon themselves to become, like, culture enforcers, and that influence has been strong. And our guys feel it, and it's played out in a manner where we're getting better. This time of year you want to galvanize. You want to toughen up. You want to become more calloused. You want to build resilience, and you want to find out what your identity is. Well, part of that is making sure that you're becoming calloused. You can deal with all the crap that we throw at you during camp and fight through pain, discomfort. This certainly is not the time for ease and comfort.
On taking players to the edge: Everybody's got to get better. I lose my mind when people say, Well, you have to find players that love football. Well, that's bull****. You got to find coaches that love football too, because if they love it, they'll do whatever it takes to be 1-0. And so we got to put coaches in adverse situations as well. I might put something on the script and blow the horn saying, Not coming out one-yard line. We're going the other way, fourth and one, have to run some extra gassers or whatever. We have to test everybody. And when I say the edge, it's that point where you're going to have a breakdown or a breakthrough. And somehow, some way we've got to coach, teach, guide, and then just flat-out push to get a breakthrough, right? That's the only way to get better. And the more competition we create, like legitimate competition, not just, you know, BS stuff to build this guy just to compete, but, like, create, like, dogs getting after dogs, iron sharpens iron, and every potential, every possible drill we can, and then pitting the coordinators and the coach against each other. The best part about it is watching the O-line, D-line coach beef, and watch the wide receiver coaches and the DB coaches. It’s almost like old-school WrestleMania, like the battle— like the Royal Rumble, right? It’s just all kinds of chaotic noise, intensity, physicality going on, and in all that chaos everybody’s losing their heads, so we got to teach our people to keep their heads and play ball and play the next play. So really good stuff for camp. We’ve improved a lot, but we’re not where we need to be yet. We have a lot of work to do.
On Darian Mensah: He’s a dog. We’ve been lucky, and I feel like it’s a broken record type of scenario. He’s another guy that absolutely has no worries or concerns about personal accolades. He wants to win. He wants to see his teammates do well. He is relentless about getting in here, watching film, pushing himself, pushing his teammates, insane energy. Like you can’t get in a bad mood. And then what he does on the field between pocket presence, awareness, delivering the ball on the money, knowing where to go with the football, another guy that understands the line of scrimmage really well, can get to the right play, run or pass, autonomy in his hands as it relates to the offense. This guy is special. And again, he’s a special human being. He’s very driven. All he’s worried about is going 1-0.
On training camp: This is not last year's team. Last year's accomplishments, and it's about as hot and as muggy as it can get, and we have taken everybody, every player, every coach all the way to the edge, and we still got two weeks to do some more, and there's been a lot of progress. We're getting done with physical camp. We knocked each other around really good, and we do feel like we're building more competitive depth, but miles to go.
On managing culture and distractions: I think two things. Number one, you either create distractions, or you just don't. I don't buy into that. There's a lot of distractions down here. You go on a high dive in a bikini underwear, that might cause distractions, but you either choose distractions, or you choose not to have them. Rueben Bain is still on the thread with all the defensive linemen, and he's in on tape. He's in on drill work, and he is absolutely ripping people's butts if they ain't doing it to the standard. And I think you're getting the same from Keionte Scott, C.J. Daniels, Francis Mauigoa. So it's almost like these guys have taken it upon themselves to become, like, culture enforcers, and that influence has been strong. And our guys feel it, and it's played out in a manner where we're getting better. This time of year you want to galvanize. You want to toughen up. You want to become more calloused. You want to build resilience, and you want to find out what your identity is. Well, part of that is making sure that you're becoming calloused. You can deal with all the crap that we throw at you during camp and fight through pain, discomfort. This certainly is not the time for ease and comfort.
On taking players to the edge: Everybody's got to get better. I lose my mind when people say, Well, you have to find players that love football. Well, that's bull****. You got to find coaches that love football too, because if they love it, they'll do whatever it takes to be 1-0. And so we got to put coaches in adverse situations as well. I might put something on the script and blow the horn saying, Not coming out one-yard line. We're going the other way, fourth and one, have to run some extra gassers or whatever. We have to test everybody. And when I say the edge, it's that point where you're going to have a breakdown or a breakthrough. And somehow, some way we've got to coach, teach, guide, and then just flat-out push to get a breakthrough, right? That's the only way to get better. And the more competition we create, like legitimate competition, not just, you know, BS stuff to build this guy just to compete, but, like, create, like, dogs getting after dogs, iron sharpens iron, and every potential, every possible drill we can, and then pitting the coordinators and the coach against each other. The best part about it is watching the O-line, D-line coach beef, and watch the wide receiver coaches and the DB coaches. It’s almost like old-school WrestleMania, like the battle— like the Royal Rumble, right? It’s just all kinds of chaotic noise, intensity, physicality going on, and in all that chaos everybody’s losing their heads, so we got to teach our people to keep their heads and play ball and play the next play. So really good stuff for camp. We’ve improved a lot, but we’re not where we need to be yet. We have a lot of work to do.
On Darian Mensah: He’s a dog. We’ve been lucky, and I feel like it’s a broken record type of scenario. He’s another guy that absolutely has no worries or concerns about personal accolades. He wants to win. He wants to see his teammates do well. He is relentless about getting in here, watching film, pushing himself, pushing his teammates, insane energy. Like you can’t get in a bad mood. And then what he does on the field between pocket presence, awareness, delivering the ball on the money, knowing where to go with the football, another guy that understands the line of scrimmage really well, can get to the right play, run or pass, autonomy in his hands as it relates to the offense. This guy is special. And again, he’s a special human being. He’s very driven. All he’s worried about is going 1-0.
I already Knew their was full of **** if iii go back watch some of his games
