Scrimmage recap from Mario Cristobal: "A lot of progress, but a lot of work to do"
The day after – some more scrimmage notes
The Miami Hurricanes held their first fall scrimmage on Saturday night, eight days after starting fall drills. While it was closed to the public and media, coach Mario Cristobal shared his thoughts afterward.
While he wanted to keep details private, he did paint some broad brushstrokes on the evening’s action.
He stressed that he was pleased with the defense’s tackling, saying “We are getting guys on the ground. Our angles are better, pad levels are better. And understanding where our help is. You understand how to leverage the ball – if you clearly understand where your help is you’re going to do really well because you can play fast.”
Cristobal said there were some explosive plays and breakdowns here and there.
“Everyone took a turn today,” he said. “As a team we’re not doing enough of the things to play at a really high level, consistently high level. Those are things we come in tomorrow we focus on.”
The coaches will now go over tape from the scrimmage and it’s likely a new depth chart will emerge when the team returns to the practice field on Monday.
UM worked on all aspects of the game in tonight’s scrimmage.
“We made it real clear we’re going to come out and play football, practice all our special teams, line up and play physical, intense, high tempo, high pace football – we did not disappoint in terms of that,” Cristobal said. ““There’s progress, it’s obvious. The strength and conditioning program showed up and showed up often so far. The execution is up and down. You always say the same thing scrimmage 1, what do you expect? But we expect to be better.”
Cristobal added that “it’s a new culture, system and pace of it is really high, the level of intensity doesn’t throttle down.”
Cristobal also says he’s not seeing championship level effort yet but that the effort is ramping up toward what he wants to see.
“We’re getting better there,” he said. “Making sure you understand what signal is coming in, what you have to do, how to get lined up as it relates to the play. And we’re not there yet, it’s hit or miss sometimes. A lot of progress, but a lot of work to do.”
Asked about the special teams aspect and working on that area live tonight, Cristobal said, “We can cover, do have some the guys that are explosive, athletic, can cover a lot of ground. Also really good punt protection. Our kickoff return team, we have a couple of good returns that can help us change the game, change the field.”
The bottom line?
“All in all we got a lot of the right type of work in today,” Cristobal said.
*CaneSport confirmed reports that RB TreVonte Citizen was banged up in the scrimmage, but there’s no immediate news on the severity of the injury.
