The time for talking is almost done. Mario Cristobal met with reporters for his last press conference before the Gator game. A summary of his comments is below:
On the team’s mindset headed into Gator week: Motivation in football should always take care of itself. When you play a rivalry game like this, it tends to crank up a couple of levels. But I think it's important to always recognize that games like this and games in general are won throughout the offseason. They're won in your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday practices. You play the game before you play the game. Every block, every tackle. Certainly the bodies change. There's always some surprises, but every ounce of focus has to be on the preparation regarding the game.
On the depth chart: We certainly know who's going to be playing for us. There's a couple you'll let out play out throughout the week in terms of who actually gets the first snap or whatnot. But in terms of the roster, the guys that are actually going to be playing, the guys that have legitimate roles defined and those that have some reserve roles, that is for the most part settled.
On preparing for the atmosphere: The noise level itself, you’ve got to simulate that in practice. Everything's got to work. This year, we have the player-to-coach communication devices. But if you watch games this week, you’ll see a lot of guys squeezing their helmets trying to get clear communication. It can't be counted on.
So what happens next? Everything else has to kick in- your wristbands, your signals, your other methods of communication. That's been a part of our process, which we've worked really, really hard to make airtight in every regard. And then you have to simulate the noise itself. It’s a loud place, they do a great job with game-day atmosphere.
In terms of the opponent itself, it's the most important part. It has to continue to be an “iron sharpens iron” mentality. Your good players have to challenge each other. We gotta see speed-on-speed all week long at the beginning, the middle, and the end of practice. When you put all those things together, we feel it's always been a good recipe for preparation.
On the new communication rules: There was a very strong contingent of those that didn't want it. They rely heavily on their hand signals in tempo and whatnot. They feel they get slowed down by that process and they got to get used to that cutoff. What do you say right before the cutoff that you can't change after the cutoff? Can you get a hold of a guy? You’ve got to keep track of green dots. Could you have two on the field? It's a penalty. So there's a lot of things that go with this.
You also have technology on the sideline to use the tablets which had never been used before. So there's a lot, and as long as it's used the right way, efficiently, as long as the information is presented with clarity, it's a bonus. If it's unorganized and jumbled, then you can create your own issues as well.
On what he’s learned about his group: We've sandwiched the different classes. Our first full cycle class, they were freshmen last year. A significant amount of them played, almost the most in the country. And now they're sophomores, so they have experience. They might not be veterans, but they have experience.
And then you have a good contingent of guys that have been here three, four, and five years that have really worked hard and seen some ups and downs. They have been just itching and grinding to be really, really good. And then you have some portal classes, particularly this last one of some really highly talented, high-caliber, high-care factor guys that can be impactful and that made essentially seamless transitions. Some guys got here in January, some at the end of the summer, some at the end of spring. All in all, what I've learned–what I’ve relearned – that it's all about people. Hard working people that are good people that have high care factors. They're gonna find a way to make it work. I'm beyond words excited to watch this group play ball.
On the trenches: We've taken a lot of pride in building a group of trench players that are explosive, that are strong, that have good balance and body control, that are tough-minded and hardworking, and that really aren't very concerned about praise. They just want to get better. They want to impact the game the best way they can. They know their role. They're really good leaders. They strive to be the very best in the country, but they certainly don't proclaim it. They're more about the work and finding a way to get it done.
On whether we need “SEC body types”: Program body types are a thing. I've coached in very different conferences. I've had an Outland Trophy winner in the Pac-12, a Remington winner, and we've had both here at the University of Miami. I think it's more team-related than it is conference-related. It's philosophical as well. What kind of program do you wanna have? We've always been about the trenches. We've just added that other component about having some explosive skill players around it now. So we're inching closer and closer to the type of roster we wanna have.
On Graham Mertz: Not enough can be said about their quarterback [Graham Mertz]. Statistically, he leads the country in accuracy when under pressure. Certainly his touchdown to interception ratio (20/3) leads you to understand how accurate, how decisive, what kind of caliber of decisions he makes. He's on point. He's a very well-coached player.
He's a very smart player, but he's also elusive. He's got great feet, great body control. He's got great awareness in the pocket. And he's a winner. And I think now going into a second year in the system, certainly a guy that you have to control throughout the course of the game.
On Cam Ward: He’s been at different places and every place he's been, he's just gotten better and better and better. And sometimes he's been playing from ahead and sometimes from behind, but he just plays and he plays at an extremely high level. He's done that since the day he got here.
On adding experience at defensive tackle: It's such a hard position to develop. It’s probably one of the biggest areas of need that we had here at Miami for a bit now. When guys have experience, when they're seasoned, they understand and they feel those double teams, the bump blocks, the reach blocks, the back blocks, all that stuff, they're able to read splits and stances and understand backfield sets. They communicate better. They understand the urgency of completing an assignment as it relates to just gap responsibilities and whatnot.
Those guys are hard workers. They're really tough, which we love, and they all have high motors, and they're really competitive. So they've been great mentors for the young guys. You certainly see our young guys improving because of the type of leadership these guys are displaying.
On the team’s health: We all feel good about our health in camp. I don't know if we had a significant injury, we certainly wouldn't share it at this time. I wouldn't mean any disrespect out of that. But I can honestly say that we feel very good about our health coming out of camp.
On the culture: It's getting there. And it's getting there because the caliber of human being, the caliber of competitor, and care factor. A lot of it starts and ends with what you are when you're away from the building. When you start cranking out successive highest GPAs in team history. We've always done really well with community service, but to just knock those numbers out and then to see time invested with the younger players, time invested with each other, just finding ways to improve relationships and connection.
The best thing in the world is getting a lot of like-minded people together. Because when they're like minded and they're high achieving, they're strong alpha personality types, they're gonna compete. They're gonna try to knock each other out in practice, but they're gonna wanna get better. We've gotten better in that regard. Are we all the way there? That's to be determined on the field. Do we feel good about it? Absolutely.
On Billy Napier: Really good person. We certainly had a pretty interesting collection of coaches back there [at Alabama], and we all took a ton of pride in our work and working for Coach Saban and had a lot of success together. I have tremendous amount of respect for him. Great family man as well. So certainly a guy that I have a lot of respect for.
On the team’s mindset headed into Gator week: Motivation in football should always take care of itself. When you play a rivalry game like this, it tends to crank up a couple of levels. But I think it's important to always recognize that games like this and games in general are won throughout the offseason. They're won in your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday practices. You play the game before you play the game. Every block, every tackle. Certainly the bodies change. There's always some surprises, but every ounce of focus has to be on the preparation regarding the game.
On the depth chart: We certainly know who's going to be playing for us. There's a couple you'll let out play out throughout the week in terms of who actually gets the first snap or whatnot. But in terms of the roster, the guys that are actually going to be playing, the guys that have legitimate roles defined and those that have some reserve roles, that is for the most part settled.
On preparing for the atmosphere: The noise level itself, you’ve got to simulate that in practice. Everything's got to work. This year, we have the player-to-coach communication devices. But if you watch games this week, you’ll see a lot of guys squeezing their helmets trying to get clear communication. It can't be counted on.
So what happens next? Everything else has to kick in- your wristbands, your signals, your other methods of communication. That's been a part of our process, which we've worked really, really hard to make airtight in every regard. And then you have to simulate the noise itself. It’s a loud place, they do a great job with game-day atmosphere.
In terms of the opponent itself, it's the most important part. It has to continue to be an “iron sharpens iron” mentality. Your good players have to challenge each other. We gotta see speed-on-speed all week long at the beginning, the middle, and the end of practice. When you put all those things together, we feel it's always been a good recipe for preparation.
On the new communication rules: There was a very strong contingent of those that didn't want it. They rely heavily on their hand signals in tempo and whatnot. They feel they get slowed down by that process and they got to get used to that cutoff. What do you say right before the cutoff that you can't change after the cutoff? Can you get a hold of a guy? You’ve got to keep track of green dots. Could you have two on the field? It's a penalty. So there's a lot of things that go with this.
You also have technology on the sideline to use the tablets which had never been used before. So there's a lot, and as long as it's used the right way, efficiently, as long as the information is presented with clarity, it's a bonus. If it's unorganized and jumbled, then you can create your own issues as well.
On what he’s learned about his group: We've sandwiched the different classes. Our first full cycle class, they were freshmen last year. A significant amount of them played, almost the most in the country. And now they're sophomores, so they have experience. They might not be veterans, but they have experience.
And then you have a good contingent of guys that have been here three, four, and five years that have really worked hard and seen some ups and downs. They have been just itching and grinding to be really, really good. And then you have some portal classes, particularly this last one of some really highly talented, high-caliber, high-care factor guys that can be impactful and that made essentially seamless transitions. Some guys got here in January, some at the end of the summer, some at the end of spring. All in all, what I've learned–what I’ve relearned – that it's all about people. Hard working people that are good people that have high care factors. They're gonna find a way to make it work. I'm beyond words excited to watch this group play ball.
On the trenches: We've taken a lot of pride in building a group of trench players that are explosive, that are strong, that have good balance and body control, that are tough-minded and hardworking, and that really aren't very concerned about praise. They just want to get better. They want to impact the game the best way they can. They know their role. They're really good leaders. They strive to be the very best in the country, but they certainly don't proclaim it. They're more about the work and finding a way to get it done.
On whether we need “SEC body types”: Program body types are a thing. I've coached in very different conferences. I've had an Outland Trophy winner in the Pac-12, a Remington winner, and we've had both here at the University of Miami. I think it's more team-related than it is conference-related. It's philosophical as well. What kind of program do you wanna have? We've always been about the trenches. We've just added that other component about having some explosive skill players around it now. So we're inching closer and closer to the type of roster we wanna have.
On Graham Mertz: Not enough can be said about their quarterback [Graham Mertz]. Statistically, he leads the country in accuracy when under pressure. Certainly his touchdown to interception ratio (20/3) leads you to understand how accurate, how decisive, what kind of caliber of decisions he makes. He's on point. He's a very well-coached player.
He's a very smart player, but he's also elusive. He's got great feet, great body control. He's got great awareness in the pocket. And he's a winner. And I think now going into a second year in the system, certainly a guy that you have to control throughout the course of the game.
On Cam Ward: He’s been at different places and every place he's been, he's just gotten better and better and better. And sometimes he's been playing from ahead and sometimes from behind, but he just plays and he plays at an extremely high level. He's done that since the day he got here.
On adding experience at defensive tackle: It's such a hard position to develop. It’s probably one of the biggest areas of need that we had here at Miami for a bit now. When guys have experience, when they're seasoned, they understand and they feel those double teams, the bump blocks, the reach blocks, the back blocks, all that stuff, they're able to read splits and stances and understand backfield sets. They communicate better. They understand the urgency of completing an assignment as it relates to just gap responsibilities and whatnot.
Those guys are hard workers. They're really tough, which we love, and they all have high motors, and they're really competitive. So they've been great mentors for the young guys. You certainly see our young guys improving because of the type of leadership these guys are displaying.
On the team’s health: We all feel good about our health in camp. I don't know if we had a significant injury, we certainly wouldn't share it at this time. I wouldn't mean any disrespect out of that. But I can honestly say that we feel very good about our health coming out of camp.
On the culture: It's getting there. And it's getting there because the caliber of human being, the caliber of competitor, and care factor. A lot of it starts and ends with what you are when you're away from the building. When you start cranking out successive highest GPAs in team history. We've always done really well with community service, but to just knock those numbers out and then to see time invested with the younger players, time invested with each other, just finding ways to improve relationships and connection.
The best thing in the world is getting a lot of like-minded people together. Because when they're like minded and they're high achieving, they're strong alpha personality types, they're gonna compete. They're gonna try to knock each other out in practice, but they're gonna wanna get better. We've gotten better in that regard. Are we all the way there? That's to be determined on the field. Do we feel good about it? Absolutely.
On Billy Napier: Really good person. We certainly had a pretty interesting collection of coaches back there [at Alabama], and we all took a ton of pride in our work and working for Coach Saban and had a lot of success together. I have tremendous amount of respect for him. Great family man as well. So certainly a guy that I have a lot of respect for.
