Mario Cristobal emphasizes players to keep their cool amid multiple spitting incidents: 'Every single day'

Just one week into the 2025 NFL season and two weeks into the 2025 college football season, spitting has become an epidemic around the sport.

Philadelphia Eagles star DL Jalen Carter kicked off the NFL season in unfortunate fashion by spitting at Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott before the opening snap of the game in the NFL’s season opener between the Eagles and Cowboys. Just days later, Florida DL Brendan Bett spit at a USF offensive lineman, costing his team the game against their in-state competition.

Off to a red-hot 2-0 start following victories over No. 6 Notre Dame and Bethune-Cookman, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal has emphasized the importance of keeping your cool to his players amid the multiple spitting incidents around the sport.

“Every day. Every single day of our lives,” Cristobal said when asked if he’s talked to his team about the act. “Who knows the interaction or the verbal exchange in that moment and what led to that, but I’m sure it was enough to drive someone through the roof. Well, I mean, I don’t judge it because I don’t coach on any of the teams that were involved in that but with us, we’ve had our moments in the past. Now, I think we’ve seen probably a half a dozen examples where our guys have restrained themselves for the betterment of the team.”

Cristobal emphasizes importance of keeping your cool

“You saw in game one how a receiver blocking his tail off gets his facemask yanked off (one guy gets punched) and he backed off or another guy got there and grabbed him and said ‘hey don’t’. Your best form of retaliation is to go have success on the next play. As long as we can keep doing that and putting selfish penalties aside because look, every single game we play is a Playoff game for everyone in college football. If you are a hot-head or are easily mentally manipulated, we’re gonna find you. Heck I tell them, NFL scouts come here all the time.

“They’ll look for guys who understand composure and play football the way it’s supposed to be played. There’s a lot to learn from that example and you don’t ever want to feel the consequences of it. You like to learn from that by seeing the misfortune of someone else.”

Miami remained at No. 5 in this week’s AP Poll Top-25 Rankings and will host No. 18 USF this Saturday afternoon in a marquee matchup that not many people saw coming. Kick-off is scheduled for 4:30 PM on The CW Network.