Mario Cristobal belabors statistical anomaly in Miami vs. Texas A&M

During its game against Texas A&M, Miami achieved an interesting statistical anomaly. The Hurricanes totaled 27 first downs and didn’t score a touchdown — and Mario Cristobal didn’t mince words about it.

“It’s hard, right? Hard to imagine,” Cristobal said in his postgame press conference. “We had some really, really nice runs, got a couple chunk plays in the passing game and just missed opportunities.”

Miami only scored nine points thanks to three field goals in its 17-9 loss to Texas A&M in Week 3. The Hurricanes were in position to tie it late as it searched for its first touchdown, but the drive stalled and the Aggies came away with the eight-point win.

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Cristobal noted Miami managed to keep things close in the hostile environment that was Kyle Field. He also credited Texas A&M for its performance before acknowledging the mistakes his team made.

“Give them credit, that’s a good football team,” Cristobal said of Texas A&M. “They’ve got a lot of really good players, their d-line is outstanding. They call a good game on both sides of the ball. I thought our guys handled the environment well.

“I don’t see anything that was shown by our opponent that confused us. … We executed well on some plays, other times just some real critical errors. Errors that it’s going to be tough to overcome them. In a way, you’re fortunate enough to get a possession at the end of the game to try to tie it when you make some of the mistakes that we made.”

Mario Cristobal: ‘We’ve got to go to work, got to look in the mirror and face reality’

Cristobal also discussed the harsh reality at hand after his group’s first loss of the season. The schedule is going to get tougher after a matchup with Middle Tennessee State this week, and he pointed to multiple areas his team can improve going forward.

That includes the coaching, he said.

“Going back to the team in terms of effort and toughness, I love it,” Cristobal said. “We do, we go hard. There’s no quit in the team. Now, real is real. We’ve got to get better. Playing a tight game doesn’t automatically make you more successful. Next week, we’ve got to go to work, got to look in the mirror and face reality. We gave up some opportunities that you just can’t give. We did that, and that’s upsetting.

“It should burn, it needs to burn. It needs to feel really motivational knowing that we could be a good team, but becoming a good team’s not just going to happen. We’ve got to keep working. We’ve made some progress. We could’ve coached better tonight, we could’ve played better tonight, we could’ve executed better tonight. We’ll get back and we’ll get back to work.”