Mario Cristobal expands on the culture he's trying to build at Miami

Year one went poorly for Mario Cristobal and the Miami Hurricanes. However, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and entering his second season in charge, Cristobal expanded on the type of culture that he’s trying to build in Coral Gables.

As Cristobal explained, it’s important for them to do things a certain way, holding one another accountable the entire time.

“I think the first thing is not ever going back to previous years — I think that’s the most important thing,” Mario Cristobal said. “I also think it’s understanding that like we do things a certain way no matter where we’ve been. No matter where we go and that’s at a really high level. Like, accountability is a real thing. As it relates to your individual periods, your team periods, finishing a rep, going to class, taking care of your body, putting the right stuff in your body, making sure that, hey, football hurts a little bit. You’ve got to finish, bumps and bruises, shake it off, go on to the next play.”

In a physical sport, Cristobal wants his team to be tough and resilient. He wants his players to hold one another to that standard.

“Being tough and being resilient. Having the accountability to come in here late and stay late and make sure that you know your playbook so that you are going the right way and doing the right thing.”

Miami is bringing in plenty of new players who need to adapt to this culture. Luckily, as Mario Cristobal explained, the older players are helping them adjust.

“Also, I do think a tremendous job by a bunch of the older guys bringing in new a bunch of new faces. 20 plus new guys that, again, when you come in mid-year that’s typically a pretty challenging situation. They’ve done a great job bringing them in, teaching them how we do things, and getting them up to speed on the systems that we’ve implemented. So, all in all, that’s a good way to summarize that.”

Bruce Feldman calls for patience surrounding Mario Cristobal

After expectations were incredibly high in year one, only for the Hurricanes to miss going to a bowl game, Mario Cristobal started to hear criticism. However, as college football writer Bruce Feldman explained, Mario Cristobal needs to be given patience.

“I don’t think we’re talking about a buyout for Mario Cristobal after one year. If it doesn’t work out for Mario Cristobal, you gotta let him have his recruits in there right? I think anybody who’s being honest knows they do not have top 10 caliber talent on the offense. The o-line was underwhelming, they don’t have receivers like they need. Now the one area he’s really upgraded dramatically, it seems, is offensive line. He has two five-star offensive linemen,” Feldman said.

“Now we talked a lot in the last couple of weeks about that’s a tough position to project. He has a former starting offensive lineman from Alabama who’s already in there, that’ll help. He’s got one of the best centers who was in the portal, has also transferred and those should make a big difference. But the skill talent needs to be upgraded dramatically. And we’ll see what happens there and you’re talking about guys who would be coming in, you know, you got to find a new quarterback coach. You got to find a new OC. And I don’t know how fast that’s gonna happen. Looking at Mario’s track record this may take awhile. They start spring ball in the first week of March.”