Cote: Cristobal’s ‘insatiable’ drive closing in on new Canes glory days | Opinion
The upward trajectory of the Miami Hurricanes football program under coach Mario Cristobal is quantifiable. It’s simple math at the bottom line: Five wins that first season with the mess he inherited, seven wins the next year, 10 last season -- now a top-10 preseason ranking and College Football Playoff expectations.
The excitement he is feeling won’t stay inside as the mammoth season opener at home vs. Notre Dame draws near.
These are my words, not Cristobal’s, but his palpable passion for his alma mater underlines them:
This feels like the dawn of new glory days at The U. Finally.
“My expectations, my love, my work ethic for this place will never be matched or fathomed,” says Cristobal.
Those new glory days, they are not here yet. Five national championships demand a standard higher than a 10-win season. And we have been teased and fooled before in the near-quarter century since that last crown in 2001. But Cristobal foments hope that new glory is near. Reachable.
“We’re more hungry, more driven now than ever before,” he says. “The momentum inside the walls of this place is [bleepin’] strong. I am beyond fired up to get at it.”
The math alone (5 wins to 7 to 10) cannot explain fully enough the arc of progress as Cristobal enters Year 4 back at his alma mater, Miami born and raised and an offensive lineman who helped the Canes win national titles in 1989 and ‘91. He inherited a roster with a talent level that had eroded sharply over time. He inherited what he calls “a monumental overhaul.”
In April 2022, soon after agreeing to leave a successful stay at Oregon to return home (”Best day ever”), Cristobal sat on a tarmac waiting to fly to a fundraiser event. It was the last day of the NFL Draft. The plane was held up because it looked like the Hurricanes’ 47-year streak of having a player draft was coming to an end, so bereft was the roster he inherted. Miami would end up having one player drafted in the seventh (last) round, but the dire need for an overhaul was clear.
Three years later, this past April, Cristobal was at the NFL Draft in Green Bay, in the green room waiting for it to start alongside his departing quarterback who’d shattered long-standing UM passing records and led the No. 1 offense in the nation in both points and yards.
“Coach, we won’t be here long,” Cam Ward told him, before becoming the No. 1 overall pick (UM’s third ever) and first of seven Canes drafted, the program’s biggest bounty since 2017.
That extended UM’s draft streak to 51 straight years. It will be 52 next spring as two current Canes, tackle Francis Mauigoa and edge rusher Rueben Bain, are presently projected as certain first-round picks. A strong season would likely also see new quarterback Carson Beck in the first round. (UM last had a 1R triple in 2007.)
Cristobal says, “I want a first-rounder at every single position,” but, as is, the talent level has grown deep, and broad, and better overall than even the team that won 10 games last year, narrowly missing the 12-team CFP as the odd-team out.
The coach admits, “The defense last year took a huge nosedive,” especially against the pass, so Cristobal hired a new coordinator, Corey Hetherman, whose defense at Minnesota last year ranked in the national top 10 in points allowed, total defense and pass defense. Ward left but was replaced by a new QB grand prize from the transfer portal in Beck from Georgia.
“My talent acquisition appetite is insatiable,” Cristobal says.
To prove it, UM is one of only six schools nationally to have top 25 recruiting and transfer classes in 2023, ‘24 and ‘25.
So now UM opens a season as a top 10 team for only the second time since 2005.
Expectations? “Continued progress,” the coach says. “Build a sustainable championship program.”
My words, not his: Cristobal is aching to add an ACC title to the two conference crowns he won at Oregon -- making him one of only seven active FBS coaches to have won multiple conference crowns. And when you are ranked 10th in angling for a 12-team CFP, well, that makes the playoffs expected more than hoped-for.
But oh, the rugged test of this season opener! The measurement of UM’s upward trajectory will be evident -- immediate and unequivocal -- with the vaunted, No. 6-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish visiting in the August 31 season opener. A Sunday. Prime time. ABC. America watching.
The Irish reached the CFP title game last year before losing and at last look were 2 1/2-point favorites over UM despite trying to decide between two new QBs.
An early loss to a quality foe would not damage UM’s outlook too badly but a win would underline in bold any narrative that the The U “is back” and feather my own notion that we are at the dawn of new glory days.
Time was, the biggest college programs would start a season with a soft opening. You know, with Bethune-Cookman or Aardvark Tech and a sure 40-point win. Not with a conference foe and most certainly not with a major opponent making real the risk of an 0-1 start. For the better, those times have changed.
UM’s openers the previous seven seasons have included a trip to play old rival Florida in 2024, a nuetral-site game vs. No. 1-ranked Alabama in 2021, a visit by the No. 8 Gators in 2019, and a nuetral-site matchup with No. 25 LSU in ‘18.
But this is different. Even bigger.
Consider: This is the 20th time in 89 seasons Miami has opened as a top 10 team in the Associated Press preseason rankings -- but only the fifth time the Canes’ opening opponent also has been top 10. That short list:
(*) 1955: No. 9 Hurricanes lose 14-6 at No. 10 Georgia Tech.
(*) 1984: No. 10 Miami upsets No. 1 Auburn 20-18 in Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium.
(*) 1988: No. 8 Canes at home stun No. 1 Florida State, 31-0.
(*) 2004: No. 6 Canes at home beat No. 5 FSU, 16-10.
(*) 2025: No. 10 UM vs. No. 6 Notre Dame.
By my reckoning this makes the ‘25 opener UM’s biggest in more than 20 years. And maybe bigger. In ‘04, three seasons after the last of five national championships, Miami’s glory-days era was ebbing. In ‘25, it feels as if new glory days at long last may be close to arriving, unfurling.
For certain, making that happen for his alma mater is not so much Mario Cristobal’s job as it is his life’s passion.
“I guess the words pressure or stress doesn’t hit me because I live for this,” he says. “I watched Miami from afar for 20 years and things took a slide. I saw Miami getting attacked by everybody, even its own people. It pissed me off. I took it personally. Then I got the opportunity to come back and do something about. That’s what drove me back here and drives me on a daily basis. It’s positive anger, and that’s an energy that burns damned clean.”
There are generations of University Miami football fans who long for the new glory days, for that long-elusive sixth national championship. Just know this, and believe it:
Nobody wants that more than this head coach.
This story was originally published August 15, 2025 at 1:41 PM.
