Josh Pate of CBS Sports traveled down to Miami yesterday to sit down with head coach Mario Cristobal. A transcript of their conversation, which you can see in full
here, is below:
Pate: Here we are. We're coming out of spring ball and we're that close, 19 Saturdays. How we feeling? Where we at?
Cristobal: Great spring. A lot of hard work as it relates to talent acquisition and development. Continuity with our coordinators has led to a lot of progress, to build upon some of the progress we had last year. So we feel strongly about our team. We feel strongly about our culture. We feel strongly about entering portal season and adding a couple pieces here and there. So the momentum within the walls of this building could not be stronger.
Pate: This whole thing is interesting, the whole concept that you could add starting pieces to your team after spring practice. You could lose starting pieces after spring practice. You're a relentless recruiter. Everyone's always known that about you. And then you add portaling into it as well. How up to the minute do you have to be, above and beyond all your other responsibilities, on who's in that thing or what you're hearing and what our needs are and what our numbers are in this compartment versus that compartment?
Cristobal: Oh, that's up to the second, because you just don't know what's really going to transpire out there. And you have a good feel for your roster. But in this day and age, with all the stuff that goes on, you've got to be aware and alert to it as well. You always have open and honest conversations, very transparent with your people. That's the most important part. And then you assess and see, where do we need to go? Where do we need to be more competitive? Where do we need an impact player? Where do we need young quality depth? And from there, we attack the portal in that form and fashion. If you do sleep, you can hurt yourself because you could miss out on an opportunity that could be a game changer.
Pate: I had a buddy text me the other day and he said, “Hey, what happens when coaches get sick? What happens when they have crises? What happens when there's a situation at home? Those guys don't just get to take the day off, do they?” So, explain to my friend what happens when you have something going on outside of work.
Cristobal: You're not allowed to get sick. I hate to break it to you, buddy. You're not allowed to have a crisis at home. You're not allowed to have a day off. You have a sole purpose and a mission to do everything humanly possible and completely dedicate every ounce of your soul into the program that you are in charge of, and that means every single day, every single minute, every single second.
I've been lucky. My wife is awesome. My kids are awesome. I have family in town and lucky to have good health. You've seen the nutritionist and their staff here, man. They put so many vitamins in you. It’d take the Ebola river virus to get you sick around this joint, but no, you just gotta go.
Pate: Anyone who follows recruiting knows you guys have brought in some pretty big names. And then anyone who watched you last year knows a lot of those young guys popped. You get to be around them a lot, day-to-day. Folks at home just see them on Saturdays. You can be as specific as you want to be: how physically impressive were some of those guys before they were even handed off to you? And what have you guys been able to do with them here?
Cristobal: We've been very blessed to have some really dedicated, committed signees. Guys that truly are about being the best they can be, that want to have an impact on others, and act it out. Culture is not the slogan or it's not the tweet, man. It's about action, and they are about action. That's the best part about these guys.
And they have personality. They're fun to be around. They're competitive. They go at each other. They jaw at each other. They make practice a lot of fun.
For us, we've had a staff with some pretty good continuity. You're now entering your third year. You've got a lot of pieces that are coming into play in terms of development and in terms of talent. People know each other. The relationships are stronger and they're getting better. There's growth. There's development.
So they make every day a lot of fun. We already pour our hearts and souls into this, but it makes you want to pour that much more because they want to do great. They want to win.
Pate: You played here when Miami was at its apex. You still remember and I still remember. But a 16, 17, 18-year-old kid, you've got to actually tell them. You've got to actually point to the banners on the wall. Do you ever have to educate kids on what it can be?
Cristobal: Absolutely. A lot of them do know and they've seen enough video and they've seen enough highlight tapes. For me, it was real simple. I know what Miami is and should be. I was a very fortunate young man to be a part of it. When you're at a distance and fortunate to have success at other places, it hurts you. We're finally like, enough is enough. We're only on this earth one time. I could not go to the grave without getting back to Miami and being a part of making Miami what it should always be.
That's what we've been working on relentlessly. Miami didn't slip overnight, and you're gonna have to invest an extraordinary amount of time and resources into getting it right. Now we feel we're getting very close.
Sometimes during practice, we have to pull our alumni off the field as they're trying to jump out there and coach. A great example is Michael Irvin at our alumni reunion this weekend. The gist of the message was about the work, how much harder practice was than game day, and that's what gave Miami that competitive edge. But he also said, “Hey, look, if you're not about winning, you can't be my friend. If you're not willing to hold yourself and others accountable, you really can't be a part of it.” With all the noise that goes on in the world of sports, it's important for them to hear a guy like that say, “Hey, are you going to listen to us as former players and Hall of Famers, or are you going to listen to the noise?” The answer to that is pretty simple.
Pate: You said you feel like you're getting a lot closer to where you want to be. Outside world sees five wins the first year, seven wins the second year, and that's really all they have to go on. Aside from the record getting better, open up the hood for the program. What's different now, and how different is it than a year ago, and how different could it be a year from now?
Cristobal: It’s the natural progression of a program when you increase the caliber of talent coming into the building and when you go to a strength and conditioning program and practice regiment that's extremely developmental. This is a program that was used here, that was used when I was an assistant coach at the University of Alabama, that we took to the University of Oregon and used there as well. The development of the players, along with some staff continuity regarding systems, leads to consistent progress.
There's so many areas that we progressed at last year to become a competitive team. The end result of every game wasn't exactly what we wanted, but some were. We won some battles that maybe Miami was not expected to come out on top. It was all progress and inching closer to what we want to be.
Now, that being said, everyone recognized the amount of work that has to be done going forward. Another year, another offseason, another spring, a great class, some great portal additions, and then culture, culture, culture. Not talking about it. Just working, man. Shutting up, cutting out the outside noise, and going to work on what we know works for Miami, and worried about nothing else.
Pate: When you're trying to recruit a guy, you've got a long runway to figure out whether he's about this or whether he's not. When you're trying to get a guy out of a portal, sometimes it's 24, 48, 72 hours, how do you figure out whether they're a good fit or not?
Cristobal: You've got to have someone or a group of people that know that particular young man. You've got to have a reference that you trust. Because just like anything else, an addition that hurts and chips away at culture could be absolutely devastating during a rough patch. Now, we feel very trusting that if there's something that's a little bit off, that our players could bring it to cultural standards. That being said, I never want to burden them with having to be the ones to do that. It's our job to make sure that we vet everything.
Pate: What's something since you've been the head coach here, not the core philosophy that never changes, but what's something on the periphery that you remember looking at, taking a long, hard think on it and saying, “Maybe we should tweak this?” Or maybe 20% change over here could do good. It could be something about you personally or about the program as a whole.
Cristobal: We're always assessing every part of it. How we do everything, whether it be our off-season program, our regimentation, how we call plays, what we call our self-scout. What are we? What do we look like on tape? What are our tells? What are our opponents doing to attack us? And why are we doing well in this and not so well in that? So we take a deep dive into that and certainly study the teams that have done the best both in college and in the NFL to make sure that we just find an edge somewhere.
In terms of the DNA of our program, we always want to enhance that. The best way to do that, in our opinion, is to get to know your people really, really well. And so we do. We take a deep dive into our people and do our best to always increase the strength of the connection, the strength of the care factor within the program. What we have found out is that the more time you spend around people, the more people realize the importance of time. There's nothing more important you can give someone than your time. So we feel like this group has become really tight with a chip on their shoulder with a lot to prove. And I think the staff feels that same way.
Pate: How do you make sure guys mentally are programmed to where you challenge them enough in this setting, to where when it actually doesn't fully go your way in the fall, you're not rattled.
Cristobal: It's a great question.I love our strength and conditioning program. I put it up against any any program in the country, but the weight doesn't push back. The intervals, they don't push back out there. It's human resistance. Coach Dave Wannstedt, our defense coordinator back in the day here at Miami, came by this morning and we were talking about that. The one thing that always stood the test of time was the way that you practice.
The value and caliber of a good football coach is his ability to construct and organize a great football practice. Because that's the only way to get true testing as it relates to human resistance. Fighting back, pushing back, creating the type of physical and mental adversity that's gonna show up. You can't simulate 90,000 people throwing all kinds of stuff at you and yelling at you, but you can simulate that gut-wrenching, relentless pounding of a tempo offense. Or you can replicate that fourth-in-one situation when a guy is dead tired after going a 14-play drive. You've got to do it out there. So it's on us to duplicate those scenarios and situations as much as possible.
Pate: If you're in a competitive setting in the business world and someone embarrasses you, you can go hide in your office. You can take a sick day the next day. A DB gets beat and looks foolish, and he has to be there again 18 seconds later. It's fascinating to me when guys possess that short memory.
Cristobal: They just don't care about that last play. They're focused on kicking somebody's you-know-what. As many of those guys you can have on your roster, the better off you'll be because all they care about is that next play and whooping somebody's butt. We seek that mentality when we have unofficial visitors. We like getting them here around practice. It either attracts you, or it makes you go somewhere else because it's not your cup of tea.
Pate: How common is it to have a guy you're recruiting check all the physical boxes, looks amazing, but when you start that evaluation of the neck up, he doesn't have it. And you're so mad because you wish you could take a two-star head and put it on top of that five-star body. How often does that happen?
Cristobal: Evaluation and identification really override recruiting. You've got to really identify the right ones before you get into the part where you want to attract this person to come to your university. They've got to be attracted for the right reasons. So you really got to find that out.
The only way to find out is to go watch practice, hopefully watch the game where they're ahead by a few or behind by a few and watch that reaction. It is as important to eliminate prospects as it is to fill that board up with the ones you're going after.
Pate: You brought Cam Ward in here. That looked like a little dicey. Is it going to be NFL? Is it going to be Miami? So as much as you can, walk me through that process. And then what did you get from him so far in spring?
Cristobal: That was a very interesting and new recruiting experience. It was no longer competing against other schools, it was competing against the NFL. We loved our young quarterback room. We loved the addition of Reese as well. Reese is a great player coming over from Albany and he was on his way down. Cam had chosen to go to the NFL.
It was 6:42 p.m. I see a FaceTime coming and I'm like, “Man, what does this guy want? Better not be to rub it in about his NFL workouts.” Get on the FaceTime, big old smile, and he says, “I want to be a Miami Hurricane.” And it's like, we're announcing this right now. This is going to be point of no return.
But there was a connection there from the beginning. Everyone felt it was right. It was a matter of, “Is this going to happen now? Is it going to happen later?” Because it feels right. And it ended up happening.
We've got ourselves a tremendous blessing, first and foremost as a human being and as a relentless competitor. Because he's an alpha. And an alpha at quarterback is a game changer. If you watch the film, you'll see all the great things he does. I've spoken just volumes in terms of his ability to make things happen, extend plays, explosive plays, see the field, make great decisions, all that stuff. We can go on and on about all the intangible stuff. His ability to lead, to be a true field general, to practice with those kind of guts and confidence. He’s got all of us really fired up.
Pate: I was down here a few weeks ago and watched practice. He stands out. We watched some cut-ups from all 22 of him, and you didn't have to say a word. He'd make a throw, hit it through the window and you would just look at me and nod your head.
I'm sitting there thinking to myself, “If I were to have inserted that ability on last year's team…” He's going to be involved in some one possession games. 7-5 versus 10-3, in terms of a coach's reputation, there's a gulf between it. It's just a bounce here, or a drop ball there, or a turnover here.
I don't know how close you feel like you guys were last year. The margins of this game, being as small as they are, what does a presence like that, along with the rest of the roster elevating, mean in terms of potential?
Cristobal: It's a massive addition. Let's call it what it is. I wish you could see this part: after practice, how he rounds up the receivers and goes right to the film. Or they grab him and they're talking about this particular concept against this coverage. “What am I seeing? What am I expecting from you?” He’s alpha in terms of that. Last week, he's got all the linemen eating every ounce of food in the city of Miami at his house. He gets it. It’s been a very strong welcoming presence for our team, and it's backed up by his performances in practice.
Pate: You had a lot of young guys here last year that you had to rely on. I assume you will play a lot of young guys again this year. Are there some things fundamentally that you change when you know we're gonna have a lot of guys on the field that haven't been here four or five years? What, from a coach's perspective, changes when you know the average age on this team is far younger than some years I've been a coach?
Cristobal: You said it perfectly, and I think every single person that coaches here has to think “players over plays.” It's the bottom line. We have some great stuff drawn up. But if we're not ready to run it, there's no point in running. Our coordinators have done a really good job with that and evolving more.
I love what we did in the spring. They really tailored things to bring along the guys so they could learn the system, find out what they can do well and then really push the envelope the last two weeks to see the capacity. Because that capacity is really tested week-to-week during the season. You'll go from a power spread to a pro-style offense to a tempo offense. You'll see a lot of different stuff. And if a guy shows capacity, along with the ability to make plays within the system, now coordinators have a little bit more flexibility. But if not, “players over plays.”
Pate: Nick Saban retires. And that impacts Alabama, impacts the SEC, but it impacts all of college football. It's just a massive ripple effect. What was your reaction?
Cristobal: Happy for him. At the same time, it's like, “Man, wow.” No one ever thought that day would really, really come. What can you say about the guy? The guy's done more for college football than maybe anybody in its history. Happy for him because he's got a great family. He's got his grandkids, he's got his 19,000 Mercedes dealerships. He should probably give a Mercedes to every assistant coach who helped him recruit great players. Put that on there. But no, he's certainly had such an impact on everyone that has either played for him or coached for him that I’m nothing but happy for him.
Pate: Can you remember some of the things you picked up there or some of the things you observed at other places that went into building the Lego house that ended up being what Miami is right now?
Cristobal: The biggest thing in all those places is they just refused to allow complacency to seep into the building. Coach Saban said if you're pushing a player to do all this extra work, I'm going to push you as an assistant coach to improve your teaching progressions, to improve the way that you present your indy drills and make them more relatable to game day. From the way a guy recruits, a presentation, the way he's on the road, the way he presents himself, grooming a guy to be a coordinator. He made it a staple to challenge everyone in the building, including himself. Without that, there's no growth.
And then the regimentation, like the actual calendar. The synchronization of the weight programs, the rep count and the build up to be able to be effective and the different position-specific exercises and development. I thought all that stuff was fascinating. To me, it was all the level of professionalism and the people that could teach guys to improve and reach their goals.
Pate: What kind of level of awareness do you feel like you have on things going on outside the football world? I don't care what it is, world issues, political, whatever. How out to left field do you feel like you are on just stuff that other people are consumed with?
Cristobal: I get a briefing at the wee hours when I get home and the wife says, “Do you realize blank?” No, thank you for letting me know. Or I get a text from a college teammate telling me a famous wrestler passed away or something happened in the community.
The job has changed. If you want to do right by the players, if you want to give your assistant coaches a chance to maximize their abilities, you need to completely entrench yourself and to use every minute you can to make things better for all those around you.
Pate: You got both coordinators here again this year. How big is the impact there?
Cristobal: We jumped between 60 and 80 spots in total offense and defense. In just about every area, massive improvement. Very few things are as important as system and people continuity. If you can have both, great. If you can have one, it's still ultra valuable. This year we got both of those things. It's awesome. Those guys are elite human beings, elite coaches. I love what they've done this spring to continue to help us to evolve and to be more connected to our players as well.
Pate: Pound for pound, who's the funniest guy on that staff right now?
Cristobal: I can't say I've heard a good joke from them in a long time, but they bring great energy. They're awesome people. That makes up for it. No one strikes me as a Rodney Dangerfield type in there.
Pate: If I were in your office and there was a grease board and two or three big bullet points for 2024 were on it, what are those things that you think will make the difference with this team this fall?
Cristobal: Securing the football. We didn't secure the football well enough and we didn't create enough turnovers. The second part is the way we played the game was inconsistent. This has to be a team that all the time plays to the absolute max capabilities from an effort standpoint. A team that has talent, but that doesn't have that consistently is going to show up inconsistently on Saturdays. But a team that has talent that can play that hard is really hard to beat.
We want to become that team by practicing it, by upping our strength and conditioning program and everything else that goes with that. And then, of course, the culture. Michael Irvin said it best the other day when he said, “If you're not about winning, you can't be my friend.” We want to make it clear to everybody here that when you wear that “U” on your helmet, when you wear it on your shirt, it's a way of life. It's how you do anything. It's how you do everything. You want to make it clear that accountability has to be about action. And a player-led team can take a program to new heights.
