Here’s what Mario Cristobal had to say about the Hurricanes’ first fall scrimmage
The Miami Hurricanes held their first scrimmage of fall camp on Sunday, three weeks ahead of their marquee season opener against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Aug. 31.
Coach Mario Cristobal’s assessment, as relayed during an in-house interview with UM radio analyst Don Bailey Jr. released by the team: The coaching staff likes what it has seen so far but there’s a lot more progress that needs to be made before the season begins.
Here are Cristobal’s full comments from the interview.
On what stood out about the offense: “Solid. Some big plays, some missed opportunities. I have to credit the other side. The other side brought it. The communication and physicality of the defense has certainly made strides. We had a chance to see the ones-on-ones, the twos-on-twos and then mixed and matched some as well, to get some guys opportunities to earn roles, both as starters and as contributors. But saw us execute at a fairly good level. Not what we want yet, but certainly a solid performance.”
On the defense: “The expectation has not been met, but there’s progress towards that expectation. Communication, the physicality and playing with technique and fundamentals showed up today. It showed up there in the way that we ran the ball on offense. It showed up for them on defense. It showed up in the way we also stopped the run. There were some legitimate, we’ll call them ‘game day collisions.’ It was all game-day situationally and I’m proud of the team, the way we responded to that. From red-zone opportunities to two-minute [drills], to two plays left in the game, one play left in the game, 2-point conversions, all that stuff. I thought that overall, they handled it really, really well and that they weren’t fazed. And we do feel there’s a lot more in the tank and that’s what we’ve talked about right now. Let’s go watch the film, let’s see what it tells us and let’s go attack it full throttle.”
On what Cristobal wants to see next when they return to practice: “Full throttle, every part about it. Situationally, we still have some things we’ve got to cover. We’ve got to cover four-minute, do some more overtime. We spend an enormous amount of time on all of the other phases, but really, technique, fundamentals, communication, ball security, ball disruption, playing with great effort. Every single play for us has to have a life of its own. I think our team is getting there. Process-oriented players tend to forget about and not think about the result or the previous play or what may happen later, but just staying in the now. There’s a lot of progress towards that and we’re going to hammer that and we’re going to demand a lot out of each other and we’re going to need a lot of energy and we’re going to progress.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2025 at 3:51 PM.