Mack Brown impressed with Mario Cristobal, expects to face a 'mad' Miami team

The North Carolina Tar Heels have their tough test coming up this week in ACC play when they head down south to take on the Miami Hurricanes. This year the Hurricanes are led by one of their former players, Mario Cristobal. Cristobal is attempting to position the Hurricanes to be a threat in college football for years to come, and Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown can see that. Ahead of their matchup, Brown explains what the Miami headman has done to impress him and reveals that he expects to face a ‘mad’ Miami team.

“Mario hired such an experienced staff. Everybody hires really good,” said Brown. “Can you imagine having Charlie Strong and Kevin Steele in the same defensive meeting rooms? I mean, that’s two of the best to ever do it. And two guys that have been head coaches as well as top defensive coordinators in the country. Gaddis is coming from Michigan. They just played in the College Football Playoff. So, I’m really, really impressed with what he’s put together down there. And like us, we had some new coaches; he had a whole new staff. They will be much better after re-evaluating those first four games and having a week off to prepare.”

Cristobal has put together quite the ensemble of coaches. As mentioned by Brown, he has a pair of former college head coaches running the defense in Strong and Steele. Steele was the head coach at Baylor from 1999 to 2002 and had two brief stints as interim head coach for Auburn and Tennessee in 2020 and 2021. Strong led the Louisville, Texas, and South Florida programs, in that order, from 2010 to 2019. and on the offensive side, he brought in Josh Gattis, the former offensive coordinator and receivers coach for the Michigan Wolverines. He is also the recipient of the 2021 Broyles award, an annual award given to honor the best assistant coach in college football.

On the season, Miami has not performed to their expected level as of late. The Hurricanes have it dropped to 2-2 following back-to-back losses to Texas A&M and Middle Tennessee. And with a week off to prepare, Brown expects to get the very best version of the Hurricanes come Saturday.

“I’m sure they fixed some things that a new staff was trying to get on the same page with. And we’ll be catching them like Notre Dame. Notre Dame was mad over the two games. They hadn’t played well since they played Ohio State. So, we’ll get a new Miami team; we’ll get a different Miami team. And that’s fair. And it’s a road game, which we’ve done better this year, but still, we haven’t been great on the road. So that’ll be another test for us.”

The Tar Heels and Hurricanes will face off in a late afternoon game on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. CST. Fans can catch all the action on ESPN 2. If Miami comes into the game the same way Notre Dame did, Brown should have his troops better prepared for action this time around.