I actually ran the numbers in another thread that I'm not going to bother looking for. Long story short: Cristobal's winning percentage for his career at FIU was 9% higher than his predecessor (Strock). It was something like .340 to .270. I don't remember the exact % bout it was around that. Butch's career percentage at FIU is around .510, compared to his predecessors that were around .320. Butch was almost 20% better than his predecessors. The argument that Cristobal significantly improved FIU doesn't really hold water. Davis beats Cristobal if you are discussing who did more for FIU compared to their respective predecessors. Doesn't mean that I'd rather have Butch over Cristobal for UM HC, but no need to exaggerate someone's accomplishments to try to win an argument.
Fair points, but if we are actually going to analyze the FIU years (and compare apples to apples), you have to start with Strock.
Strock's first 3 years were as a Division I-AA independent, and then he was in the Division I-A Sun Belt for 2 years. Strock's wins per year were 5, 2, and 3 (I-AA independent years) and 5 and 0 (I-A Sun Belt years). Mario coached for 6 years, all in the Division I-A Sun Belt, and won 1, 5, 3, 7, 8, and 3 games.
Then you take a look at the opponents, since many of both Strock's and Mario's losses came to MUCH MUCH better teams, particularly OOC teams.
Strock Y1 (I-AA) - toughest opponents were losses to Maine, FAU, and Bethune-Cookman
Strock Y2 (I-AA) - toughest opponents were losses to Maine, FAU, Georgia Southern, and Bethune-Cookman
Strock Y3 (I-AA) - toughest opponents were losses to Western Kentucky, Georgia Southern, and Bethune-Cookman
Strock Y4 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Kansas State and Texas Tech
Strock Y5 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to USF, Maryland, Alabama, and Miami
Mario Y1 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Penn State, Kansas, Maryland, Arkansas, and Miami
Mario Y2 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Iowa, Kansas, and USF
Mario Y3 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Alabama, Rutgers, and Florida
Mario Y4 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Texas A&M, Rutgers, Maryland, and Pitt
Mario Y5 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Duke and Marshall, though they beat Louisville and UCF
Mario Y6 (I-A) - toughest opponents were losses to Duke, Louisville, and UCF
Strock piled up 10 of his 15 wins in I-AA when his toughest opponents were not I-A teams. Mario coached all 6 of his years in I-A and played a fairly brutal OOC schedule (for a school that had just made the jump from I-AA), so Mario took a lot of tough losses, while doing better and better in the Sun Belt.
Bottom line, if someone can't see that Mario significantly improved FIU over his tenure (with the exception of his final year, when his battle with Pete got out-of-hand), then I don't know what constitutes "program-building".