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Friedlander: Mario Cristobal was hired by Miami to win championships … and the clock is ticking
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CHARLOTTE, NC – Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Miami is loaded with talent, has its swagger back and is poised to break through and return to its traditional championship form.
It’s a narrative that has become an annual rite of fall. And the one that’s rapidly approaching is no exception.
With one of the nation’s best transfer portal hauls and a top-5 national recruiting class, Mario Cristobal’s team already is being hyped as a legitimate contender to win the ACC (for the first time) and earn a spot in the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
The only thing more familiar than those expectations is the Hurricanes’ inability to meet them.
Despite being picked to finish 1st or 2nd in the league or their division 13 times since becoming a conference member in 2004, they’ve yet to win their first football title. They’ve only made it to the championship game once in their 20 ACC seasons, losing 38-3 to Clemson in 2017.
Over that same stretch, 25 other power conference programs have won a conference title, including 6 from the ACC. Wake Forest and Georgia Tech among them.
Miami joined the ACC in 2004 and has yet to win an ACC championship in football.
Since then, 25 other Power 5 programs have won a conference championship game. That includes 6 different ACC programs.
It's time to do something, Miami.— Saturday Down South (@SatDownSouth) July 24, 2024
The clock continues to tick. And Cristobal is either tone deaf or wearing noise-reducing headphones if he doesn’t hear it getting louder and louder with each season he’s back at his alma mater.
True, it’s only be Year 3, but Cristobal wasn’t brought home to Coral Gables to show gradual improvement, finish a game or 2 over .500 or play Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl.
He was hired to win.
Win big.
Win now.
And he knows it.
You can talk all you like about the external pressure he’s under to make this the year Miami finally gets over the hump.
And the pressure is immense.
But it’s minuscule compared to the internal pressure that’s building like a simmering volcano inside the intense former offensive lineman who helped the Hurricanes win national championships in 1989 and 1991.
“This has been a lifelong dream and chase for myself,” he said Wednesday at the ACC’s preseason Football Kickoff event. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. Being away watching Miami with its ups and downs for several years, I’m not going to go to the grave without being a part of Miami being what Miami is supposed to be again. And make it sustainable.”
Related: Looking to place a bet on the Heisman Trophy winner for 2024? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!
There can be no doubt that Cristobal is sincere in his desire or his effort to get his program back among the nation’s elite.
He made sweeping changes when he arrived as a conquering hero in 2022 by doing away with the silliness of the Turnover Chain and almost completely turning over the roster through a liberal use of the transfer portal.
He’s stressed hard work over swagger.
“No claims, no tweets, no t-shirts. None of that junk,” he said. “We’re going to take another step this year.”
Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal breaks down team at ACC Kickoff: "We aren't here to make any predictions … we want to get to work" – https://t.co/JVeljGaMQK pic.twitter.com/knK7pe5SGY
— CaneSport Miami Hurricanes (@CaneSport) July 24, 2024
Cristobal certainly talks a good game. He’s the kind of coach whose motivational skills play well on the recruiting trail and in whipping his team into a frenzy in the pregame locker room before sending it out to do battle.
But even during his successful tenures at Florida International and Oregon, his game management skills have often come into question.
That was painfully evident against Georgia Tech last October. Leading 20-17 with less than a minute to go, all Miami needed to do to secure an important ACC victory was take a knee and let the clock run out. Instead, Cristobal opted to run a play instead of having his team line up in Victory Formation. Instead, Miami fumbled on a running play, Tech recovered and then scored the winning touchdown on the final play. It was 1 of 4 losses by a touchdown or less in the Hurricanes’ 7-6 season.
Those are the kinds of little mistakes that must be eliminated if Miami is ever going to accomplish the big things that always seem to elude it.
“We just have to put the pieces together,” offensive tackle Jalen Rivers said. “I don’t want to say too much, because we can talk about it all we want. But we won’t know until the season. But I feel like this team is different because we all have the mindset that we’ve had enough. We want to win.”
They have the pieces to do it.
In addition to a returning core anchored by ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year Rueben Bain Jr., an elite offensive line and arguably the best receiving corps in the conference, Cristobal and his staff bolstered their lineup by landing Cam Ward – the premier quarterback in the transfer portal from Washington State – and 1,100-yard rusher Damien Martinez from Oregon State.
But talent has never been Miami’s problem.
Figuring out a way to turn that talent into the kind of results that come with trophies and confetti showers is the Holy Grail the Hurricanes – and the previous 5 coaches who came and went before Cristobal – have spent the past 2 decades chasing.
And the clock keeps ticking.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
