Mario Cristobal reveals his Miami pitch to recruits

In a lot of ways, the Miami football program was built on recruiting. Mario Cristobal, as a former Hurricane himself, knows this all too well. He also knows that he needs to get players on campus despite changes in the landscape of the sport and a lack of recent success by Miami.

During an appearance on The Hard Count with J.D. PicKell, Mario Cristobal explained the pitch that he makes to recruits.

“I think just being real and being genuine,” Mario Cristobal said. “The best predictor of the future is what a staff or a coach has done in the past.”

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Mario Cristobal pointed to his own record at Oregon, where he built the Ducks back into one of the PAC-12’s premier teams before leaving for Miami.

“I mean, look at the past stops of our coaches. Our program and our blueprint, you know when I was at Alabama and in ’16 before going to Oregon, and again that team was 4-8 and we weren’t there this last year but the last two years we were there we either won or played for the conference title and won a Rose Bowl title,” Cristobal said.

“And that was through culture, hard work, and talent acquisition. The edges look better, the trenches got better, the explosiveness outside. We had a great quarterback on the roster, Justin Herbert, but then we also won the conference with other quarterbacks as well.”

Recruiting has been good at Miami since Mario Cristobal took over. In 2023, the Hurricanes even had sixth-ranked class in the On3 Industry Rankings.

Now, Mario Cristobal thinks that the culture is coming into place so that his team will be better adjusted to go in 2023.

“So, a lot of hard work by a lot of people who just come together for a common goal and are like minded individuals who buy into the culture. The culture, it starts and ends with hard work and eliminating any entitlement and any selfishness and we brought that over here and that’s about as subtle as a shot right in the nose, and that’s okay. We planned on that. We were fully aware of what we had to do and how we had to do it and what comes in the first part of it,” Cristobal said.

“So, for us, the excitement around here, the true just energy, in what’s going on is awesome and it seen in every single day on the field. So, proud of our players for the work they’ve been putting in and just excited to get to practice today just to keep getting better.”

Mario Cristobal has no plans of letting the team slip during a rebuild

The reality is that Miami is going through a rebuild during the early part of Mario Cristobal’s tenure. However, as they do so, Cristobal insists that he has no plans of letting the team slip.

“Well, what made Miami, Miami, is; I always go back to telling people in high school why I chose Miami. And it wasn’t because of the building or palm trees, and it really wasn’t because of the nice weather. It was [because] I was addicted to coming to practice and watching Michael Irvin and Benny Blades annihilate each other in practice. And Jerome Brown and Greg Rocosa go at it nonstop; Alonzo Highsmith, Rod Carter,” Cristobal said.

“It was a culture that just pushed and worked to a level that they knew when they hopped on a bus or a plane on Friday; they were not going to be beat. I mean, they just loved competing, they loved practicing, they loved work. That’s what made Miami, Miami.”