Mario Cristobal blunt about managing the December college football calendar: 'Cancel Christmas, you got stuff to do'

College football’s untenable calendar has Miami head coach Mario Cristobal channeling his inner Grinch this holiday season. As the 10th-ranked Hurricanes ready for Saturday’s first-round College Football Playoff game at No. 7 Texas A&M, Cristobal weighed in on the harsh reality that the sport’s postseason schedule creates for coaches and players alike.

Whether it’s National Signing Day falling on Dec. 3, just days before Championship Weekend, or this year’s two-week NCAA Transfer Portal window opening on Jan. 2nd, one day after the conclusion of the CFP national quarterfinals, the calendar doesn’t leave much opportunity for college football teams to fully embrace the holiday spirit in December.

For his part, Cristobal — a father of two — sounded more like Ebenezer Scrooge than Tiny Tim when explaining how Miami was approaching the next several weeks.

“I mean, just cancel Christmas,” Cristobal said during Monday’s press conference. “You’ve got stuff to do. And I don’t think any coach will feel sorry for themselves, the job is what it is, and until they figure it out how to make the calendar make sense, you do what you’ve got to do. I don’t think you can sit up here at the podium and demand all that we demand of our players and our staff and all of a sudden January and December are kind of Hell for you and you come up here and complain about it.

“You just deal with it. You do what’s best for people, for the program, you do it straight up. It’s just business. It’s not personal, it’s straight business.”

But first, Cristobal and the 10th-seeded Hurricanes (10-2) are completely focused on Saturday’s first-round Playoff game against the 7th-seeded Aggies (11-1) in College Station (12 noon ET, ABC/ESPN). The winner will take on second-seeded Ohio State (12-1) in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.

Mario Cristobal reveals Miami team reaction to making College Football Playoff

It was almost a relief for Miami to get into the 2025 College Football Playoff, but there was no time for celebration for Mario Cristobal. The Hurricanes head coach said he and his team were thrilled to get into the 12-team bracket, but now it’s about getting back to work.

“Well, we’ve been communicating via phone, FaceTime, text messaging or whatnot,” Cristobal said last week. “We did not have a team meeting today. Our meeting is tomorrow morning, if we begin preparations. But we had, because we had worked through the entire week, and this is typically a day off in their work week, so we kept the schedule as is, but … you can tell by the tone of their message was, ‘hey, let’s get to work.’ Obviously, extremely happy, extremely grateful for the opportunity, but very, very driven to get to the task at hand.”

— On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report.