What Mario Cristobal did to test Miami’s mental toughness in his first spring scrimmage
In a spring scrimmage won by the Miami Hurricanes’ defense, Mario Cristobal still tried to manufacture some adversity for his offense.
After one of the offense’s touchdowns Saturday at Greentree Practice Fields, Cristobal asked one of the officials to throw a flag on the offense, just to see how the group would respond.
“Is it going to be hands up, Oh, man that’s BS, or is it going to be, Let’s roll, let’s find a way,” Cristobal said in a video shared by Miami after its latest practice in Coral Gables. “We’ve got to build our minds to the point where it doesn’t matter what the previous play brought. ... Mentality and identity is at the forefront of everything we do.”
It has been a theme of the entire spring for the new coach and it was a point he tried to make Saturday during the Hurricanes’ first scrimmage of his regime — at least based on the limited information made public by Miami.
The Hurricanes’ scrimmage was closed to reporters, although parents and some alumni — including Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle Warren Sapp — were in attendance, and Cristobal did not share many specifics about top performers or individual moments from the intrasquad game.
Defense bests offense in scrimmage
The offense, he said, had its moments and scored a handful of touchdowns, but the defense typically got the better of quarterback Tyler Van Dyke and Co.
“The day went to them,” Cristobal said. “They came out with a lot of juice. The offense scored a couple times and pounded it out a little bit, but the defense — they forced a lot o three-and-outs.”
Although every positive development in a scrimmage comes at the expense of someone else on the team, this is a good sign for the Hurricanes, given how far ahead of the defense their offense was last season.
Cristobal praises Tyler Van Dyke
Whatever happened Saturday wasn’t enough to sour Cristobal on Van Dyke at all, either.
“I still think he’s going to be—if not the best—one of the best in the country,” Cristobal said. “You never want to proclaim being the best. You want to go earn it, but he’s everything that you heard in the media and whatnot, just an incredibly intelligent, diligent young man who understands football.”
Cristobal said, “It’s like having a coordinator on the field,” with Van Dyke because of how well he reads defenses and sets protections, and understands ball placement and other intricacies of his position.
Quarterback Jake Garcia earned plaudits, too.
“Jake made some unbelievable plays out here,” Cristobal said, then also mentioned the play of fellow quarterbacks Peyton Matocha and Jacurri Brown. “Our room has just gotten better and better and better. We feel very strongly about that.”
Miami’s run game makes strides
Like the rest of the offense, the performance of Miami’s rushing attack was up and down, Cristobal said. The early moments of the scrimmage, however, were encouraging, as the Hurricanes try to improve on their 3.8-yards-per-carry average from last season.
“We ran the ball well today. We started off really well, the team ran play action, we took a dip and you felt like there were some things you couldn’t get past it and we couldn’t get out of our own way, and that was upsetting, I’ve got to be honest with you. That set me off and rightfully so. The enemy’s in the other locker room and we should be finding ways to encourage each other and push each other, and then we did and we got over that hump. And then we went down and scored.”
This is where Cristobal asked for the flag, he said.
Cleaning up the self-inflicted mistakes has been a priority for Cristobal this spring and it was the main message he tried to get across after Miami’s first scrimmage.
“There’s no bad play, no injury, no circumstance that we can’t overcome. We’ve got to get there mentally,” Cristobal said. “Once we do that, then our identity will follow, but there is progress and I’m really excited about that.”
