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Mario Cristobal offers no discernable advantage

zpeazy said:
One other thing to consider:

How many "coming home" stories work out. See Harbaugh at Michigan. See Frost at Nebraska. See Richt at the U. The major difference with all of these is that Richt resigned on reasonable terms for the U. Look at the struggles that Michigan and Nebraska have had in trying to decide if they need to fire Harbaugh and Frost, respectively. Look at David Shaw at Stanford. All of those schools have struggled with how much rope do you give "your guy." Kingsbury at Texas Tech.

Maybe UGA holds on and wins it all this year. Maybe Smart becomes the first to have true success at their alma mater in a long time. But, look at the list of coaches going back to their alma maters that do not work out. The odds are not in Mario's favor. https://www.si.com/college/2019/04/19/alumni-head-coaches-jim-harbaugh-pat-fitzgerald

I love the Mario hire (if he would come), but that is a lot of pressure to be putting on a new A.D., especially if the new A.D. is given Mario without input in the process.
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Interesting point, but Harbaugh is about to have 10 wins for the 4th time in 7 seasons. He may even reach 11 regular season wins for the 1st time at Michigan this year. This is in addition to a 9 win season amongst those 7 as well. Covid year was bad, real bad but that man can still coach and isn’t anywhere close to the Frost/Kingsbury/Shaw category IMO. His biggest detriment are the L’s that he consistently takes to MSU/OSU.
 
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Lane’s recruiting ability (currently ranked 3rd to last or 12th best class in the sec) is a cause for concern so you hope his scheme on offense recruits itself. There’s no question he’s a competent coach on that side of the ball. He’s still largely unproven as a power 5 head coach. He’s having a nice year this season but he hasn’t had any sustained success at a high level program anywhere as a head coach. He has some personality quirks.

Mario is one of the best recruiters in the country. Few can sell a program better in the living room. He has the credibility of being a former player at this level and has now had sustained success at Oregon.

He’s bit of a deer in headlights on the sidelines. He needs to be more willing to adapt to the modern aspects of college football.

Either coach would be a shot in the arm to this bed ridden coma of a program.

It would get exciting quickly around here.

I’m personally partial to Mark Stoops but he’s not the homerun perception wise like the aforementioned two.
 
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RiDLer80 said:
I know a majority of this board has an unhealthy obsession with bringing alumni home to save the program, but Mario is not what we need. He offers no tangible advantage for this program.

I hear everybody say, he'll fix the OL like he's the only person in the country that can recruit good o-linemen. The truth is, people say that about him because that's all he truly brings to the table. He has no system that

Fans will also talk about his recruiting. It's true; he's killing it right now, but we've seen time and time again that you need more than good players to win games. We've seen watched Miami for over a decade continually lose to lesser talented teams because of coaching ineptitude. Talent only gets you so far. L to Stanford this year, L's to Oregon State and Cal last year. Also, lets face it, he's taking advantage of an extremely down conference right now--USC, UCLA and Washington are all shells of themselves and he's feasting on the west coast. That wouldn't happen recruiting the southeast. He'd have to go up against Bama, UGA, Clemson, Ohio State etc. for recruits.

How about discipline? A hard-nosed guy like Mario must have a disciplined team. Nope. Oregon's currently sitting at 114th in the country in penalty yards per game--exactly one spot in front of your Miami Hurricanes.

How about offense? Mario has to have great offenses, right? Him being an offensive guy and all. 32nd ranked offense in the nation. For reference Miami is ranked 28th. His offense isn't bad, but it's consistently been underwhelming. The narrative regarding Justin Herbert and his time at Oregon was that the offense failed him. He was used incorrectly and it failed to showcase his talents. Mario has no offensive system so he'd need to make the correct hire there. We'd also have to hope he doesn't hamstring that OC either by playing a conservative style of football.

Mario would need the perfect OC and DC hires to succeed because he offers no schematic advantage on either side of the ball. He's your classic CEO type head coach. Think about all the top coaches in the country right now. All of them have a calling card on one side of the ball or the other. Saban on D, Kirby on D, Day on offense, Riley on offense, Gundy on offense etc. I could go on and on. Mario is not guru on either side of the ball which means he'd need big money coordinators to succeed here, and that scares me. That's why I'm all in on guys like Lane Kiffin or Hugh Freeze. At least you know with them one side of the ball will be taken care of.
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Ive been saying your post for 2 years...

and all i hear is rah rah won conference....rah rah he's tough.......rah rah lock down south florida.

FOOLS GOLD.

Within 2 years ..folks here will be calling for his head...as his Dan Enos type of offense takes place....and he is losing to UVA.

Go OUTSIDE THE CANE BOX FOR A COACH.

If we get him i will be te same way i was about Manny...hope he does well..ho hum about it..know what to expect.
 
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WaterburyCane said:
This concerns me. Back in my single days I could pull the 1 hot chick at band camp, but drop me in a NY Night Club, and I’d have to get scrappy and wouldn’t always come out with a W.

Seriously though, it’s a knife fight for SFL talent. Different game than in the Northwest. I believe though if we put a good product on the field, we will get our share. I just don’t think the “Mario will lock it down” thing is going to happen. Whoever we hire is going to have to build relationships early, evaluate way better than we have, make that offer mean something, and continue to recruit nationally.
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I agree Mario isn’t going to ‘lock it down’. There’s too much talent. Always has been. I do believe Mario has the respect of the area coaches to rebuild those relationships. He’s not in unfamiliar territory. He‘s proven he can evaluate.

Where Mario any Miami HC will struggle is convincing an elite player to stay home when other schools are offering a bag.
 
Funny how long this thread has become about a brain dead original post. Cristobal is in the thick of the playoff hunt despite some key injuries and beat OSU at OSU. He won 2 Pac 12 championships. He is a top 5 recruiter. But he offers no discernable advantage to the op. Lol I guess that means the OP isn't able to discern his posterior from his elbow.
 
gogeta4 said:
Within 2 years ..folks here will be calling for his head...as his Dan Enos type of offense takes place....and he is losing to UVA.
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He isn't losing to too many of the Pac 10 versions of VA...That's for sure.

His offense looks excellent this year despite average qb play.

Don't get me wrong...I don't think he's great shakes. But this team needs toughness soooo bad. And not just cliche toughness...Real accountability and toughness. There is no accountability. All of this emotional....player's coach, "I knoooowww there is a good team in there and my heart bleeds for them"...my coach puts 4 quarters up on his hand before the 4th and runs all over the side line...You're not allowed to score a TD and NOT put on the TD rings no matter how much you are losing by...**** all that. It's all gimmicks and softness.

I'd love for us to find the next great one...My favorite gamble is Deboer at Fresno. He's not my first choice but Cristobal is a huge step up, and kids will respect the track record. He's nothing like Diaz, there was no track record there other than a couple "decent" defenses and oh he invented the turnover chain!

And I think Diaz is a decent recruiter...I think Cristobal will be a better one
 
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RVACane said:
Manny sucks but you stood by him for a long time and Mario is an easy upgrade over him. How does Mario compare to who we have could have a reasonable shot at?
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If there was a comparison to be made there wouldn't be a need for a conversation.

Regardless, being an easy upgrade isn't and shouldn't be a consideration for a hire. And having concerns about the way he's winning right now, consistently struggling against some pretty bad teams doesn't make someone a Mario hater.
 
htownkidd said:
I keep seeing this, but Oregon never had a top 10 class ever in history before Mario got there. That Nike money that so many on here claim can buy the world has been there for decades. He is on the verge of his 3rd top 10 class in 5 cycles when they never had 1 prior to him according to the 247 rankings. Why is that? If the Nike money is the end all be all and the only reason he is doing so well? Why couldn’t others do what he is doing? I know what the rebuttal will be, and I agree with much of what the OP said and have stated several times that the man isn’t perfect, but I don’t question his recruiting at all. JMO
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Its been stated multiple times

1.) Oregon recruited a type previously with chip and other coaches. He would talke smaller ,faster guys or certain scheme fits that fit his system over rankings for example. Mario went to sort of a Bama look of throwing out a bunch of offers to all the 5 stars and sees what sticks. Its the one thing he does right..Recruit so its his emphasis. Hes not earth shattering as a recruiter though..he isnt Urban Meyer level of a closer or anything
2.) No one says nike money is the ONLY reason
3.)The reason he is doing well.....the only legitimate other teams in his conference....ARE DOWN. USC and Washington have been stinking it up sometime recruiting. Oregon IS THE TOP DOG OUT WEST. ****** Willie Taggart would be having similar classes there right now.
 
Mario is a flawed HC but we as fans need a reality check on what this program needs. We need a coach that was going to do what Richt was supposed to do and that is bring us back to relevance. Let’s not over think this and expect us going toe to toe with Bama or the Suckeyes. We need a coach that will help us win the Coastal and a bowl game. Then win the conference and a bigger bowl game. These are things that Mario has proven he can do. We are currently a middle of the pack ACC team, which is not a great conference.
 
OldhamA said:
The problem with that being they spend all week focusing on their side of the ball and other things fall apart. There's only so many hours in the week.
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C A N E said:
Lane’s recruiting ability (currently last ranked class in the sec) is a cause for concern so you hope his scheme on offense recruits itself. There’s no question he’s a competent coach on that side of the ball. He’s still largely unproven as a power 5 head coach. He’s having a nice year this season but he hasn’t had any sustained success at a high level program anywhere as a head coach. He has some personality quirks.

Mario is one of the best recruiters in the country. Few can sell a program better in the living room. He has the credibility of being a former player at this level and has now had sustained success at Oregon.

He’s bit of a deer in headlights on the sidelines. He needs to be more willing to adapt to the modern aspects of college football.

Either coach would be a shot in the arm to this bed ridden coma of a program.

It would get exciting quickly around here.

I’m personally partial to Mark Stoops but he’s not the homerun perception wise like the aforementioned two.
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Kiffin is last right now? Fugg that.
 
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Go Canes!! said:
If there was a comparison to be made there wouldn't be a need for a conversation.

Regardless, being an easy upgrade isn't and shouldn't be a consideration for a hire. And having concerns about the way he's winning right now, consistently struggling against some pretty bad teams doesn't make someone a Mario hater.
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Dude, you’re talking ancillary talk. How does Mario compare to who you think we have a reasonable shot with?
 
There are definitely concerns with guys like Mario. Great recruiter but more of a CEO, they need incredible assistants and coordinators to develop the fruits of the recruiting.

Then on the opposite end of the spectrum you have guys who do more with less, that are tacticians and great X’s & O’s coaches.
Guys that we always mention “how can coach_____ get his team to play so well with a bunch of 2 and 3 stars yet Randy/Al/Manny cant get top 15 classes to preform” etc

The risk with those guys is maybe they don’t recruit well enough at an elite level to leap forward to championship contenders. They’re great at developing guys, but who knows if they can pull enough elite talent to become an elite team.

My concern with the latter is that he can be mediocre at recruiting, at worst at the level we have the last 15 years, and still field good teams, but not have enough juice in the talent department to become a true contending program.

The same can be said about a recruiter CEO type. They bring in a lot of talent but may not coach them up well enough to have enough contributors playing at an elite level which in turn makes the team elite.

Unfortunately, we aren’t pulling the sure thing coach. Those guys right now are already established at elite programs. Saban, Jimbo, etc aren’t coming to Miami, so we must take a leap of faith on a developer or a recruiter.

Now, we can do a much better job at selecting a guy that won’t be terrible like we have been doing, but it’s still going to be a leap of faith on whether or not they can actually do it at the highest level.

For me, the margin for error on a recruiter is much larger than the developer as a head coach.

I feel a guy like Mario or any other big time recruiter, who has proven themselves to be elite at recruiting at big time programs, has better odds of making the right hires to complement and develop the talent they bring in than the development/X’s & O’s type coach has at becoming successful at recruiting elite talent at a top level program.

It can go either way, but I think you have a better shot of a proven recruiter making good staff choices and that’s why I think Mario can work. Not saying he will for sure, but I think there is a good chance as long as he makes the right hires. The man can absolutely recruit. He did it at Alabama and is now doing it at Oregon.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Homie, look at the road to the CFP this year in the ACC. The league is so bad we're not even going to get a team in, or even close to it. I don't think Mario is the 2nd coming of Christ, he's got some warts as a gameday coach, but honestly, who doesn't? What coach that we can possibly get is coming devoid of any concerns? They don't exist outside of places like Tuscaloosa.

Mario has a HIGH floor, IMO. You know he's going to recruit, at worst, very well. You know we're going to be competent. You know we're going to beat the vast majority of the teams we're supposed to beat. You know we're going to be competitive. Can he be a good enough football coach to win a championship? I don't know. But the things I just listed, I am 100.0% confident in. The guy has experience, he's seen what it takes to win at the highest level both as a player and a coach, he's proven to be able to win games vs good teams (and lose them to bad ones, to be fair), but for going on 20 years we've been a literal joke. Not just an average team. A joke. An undisciplined, underperfoming, non-developing laughing stock. I'm tired of it. Sure, if his track record remains the same as it's been, we might be in a dogfight with a UVA or a Wake in October. But we're in a dogfight every **** week in this garbage *** league. And we have been FOREVER since we joined it. I just want to be competent. I want to be tough. I want to not watch our kids talk **** like this is 1987 and then get blown out of buildings, like we've seen in places like ******* Manhattan, Kansas for Christ's sake. Is he the end-all, best possible candidate we can ever get? I don't know, maybe not. But if somehow we land him, it's a homerun. Period. It's an absolute ****-shot, ****-missile of a homerun to dead center for this program. I'm trying to see everyone's opinion here and be level-headed, but for the life of me, I can't see how anyone can disagree with that.
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My trepidation is not about Mario himself, it’s about the approach in general..

We all want the same thing, there’s just varied pathways to get there.

What I’m skeptical of is the assumptions, I don’t trust the assumptions that we’re going to transform into a top team overnight & I doubt that he’s going to replicate his Oregon recruiting at Miami. It’s not really because of him, it’s because of the program. I believe we need a coach who can work around the restraints of the program & IMO Mario is a guy who needs the program to be running at optimum level in order to be successful. Without the proper backing it’s much harder to do what’s necessary to get back to being competitive, the only way around it is if you have a schematic advantage that levels the playing field.

For the style of play that he wants I don’t think we have that here & I don’t think you can recruit that in one or even two classes. I think his style of approach to getting us to being a better team will take more time than most expect, because to go from the kind of roster we are now to being a physical dominant talent heavy team is something that takes a while, especially when you factor in the recruiting Wars we have to endure in order to achieve that.

I understand the emotional sentiment that comes with it & I get why people assume that if he came here that we would be waltzing into the CFP in no time, I’m just not gonna fall for it until I see it happen & if he plans on turning us into the same type of team he has at Oregon I definitely don’t see that happening as fast as everyone wants/thinks.

He’s absolutely a slam dunk hire on paper, just the methodology by which we go about trying to become a perennial contender IMO is much easier said than done, especially when you’re doing the way he wants to. I believe his method works in certain places, but is much harder to do at Miami than people really realize.
 
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Will Mario Recruit better than Lane?
I believe so.

Will Mario have an immediate on the field visible difference like Kiffin would?
Idk and I think not as impactful.

Does Mario have the pull and respect to be able to entice elite coordinators?

Do elite coordinators want to work for either of them?

This is something that hardly anyone talks about. Ultimately you’re hired by the university but you work for the head coach. We seem to forget that Mario landed in Eugene by accident and if I’m not mistaken wasn’t under consideration for any top p5 jobs not named Miami.

Is Oregon better off now than before he got there? Are they headed in a better direction?
Yes

Is ole miss better off now? Yes
****, is Mississippi state better? Yea

I’ll go with with either but the question shoud also be asked who can get better coaches than the other?
What good is being a great recruiter if you can’t get good coordinators and position coaches?
Either coaching or recruiting on its own can only get you so far. We need both to win at the national level.

It’s hard to overlook the pull Mario has with recruiting.
But it’s also extremely difficult to overlook where Kiffin has been and what he’s done at different places.

If it was me I would go with freeze.
But I just don’t see a dude that spent his entire life in the rural south wanting to coach here.

And freeze will bolt outta here if a top sec job opened up. (Florida)

However, something tells me that Kiffin actually likes it down here and would stay longer than most people think. He’s already at an sec school with a pretty aggressive booster base and if he stays a few more years and a “better” job opened up he could leave then. So if he would dip out on ole miss it’s cause he would want to try and win here cause he likes it here and not so he can parlay it into a “better” gig.
 
Liberty City El said:
My trepidation is not about Mario himself, it’s about the approach in general..

We all want the same thing, there’s just varied pathways to get there.

What I’m skeptical of is the assumptions, I don’t trust the assumptions that we’re going to transform into a top team overnight & I doubt that he’s going to replicate his Oregon recruiting at Miami. It’s not really because of him, it’s because of the program.

For the style of play that he wants I don’t think we have that here & I don’t think you can recruit that in one or even two classes. I think his style of approach to getting us to being a better team will take more time than most expect, because to go from the kind of roster we are now to being a physical dominant talent heavy team is something that takes a while, especially when you factor in the recruiting Wars we have to endure in order to achieve that.

I understand the emotional sentiment that comes with it & I get why people assume that if he came here that we would be waltzing into the CFP in no time, I’m just not gonna fall for it until I see it happen & if he plans on turning us into the same type of team he has at Oregon I definitely don’t see that happening as fast as everyone wants/thinks.

He’s absolutely a slam dunk hire on paper, just the methodology by which we go about trying to become a perennial contender IMO is much easier said than done, especially when you’re doing the way he wants to. I believe his method works in certain places, but is much harder to do at Miami than people really realize.
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Hire Kiffin, win quickly and then reevaulate in 3-5 years when he becomes the Coach for the [insert NFL team]. I could still see Mario being anywhere from unattainable to already our OL coach at that point.
 
Liberty City El said:
My trepidation is not about Mario himself, it’s about the approach in general..

We all want the same thing, there’s just varied pathways to get there.

What I’m skeptical of is the assumptions, I don’t trust the assumptions that we’re going to transform into a top team overnight & I doubt that he’s going to replicate his Oregon recruiting at Miami. It’s not really because of him, it’s because of the program.

For the style of play that he wants I don’t think we have that here & I don’t think you can recruit that in one or even two classes. I think his style of approach to getting us to being a better team will take more time than most expect, because to go from the kind of roster we are now to being a physical dominant talent heavy team is something that takes a while, especially when you factor in the recruiting Wars we have to endure in order to achieve that.

I understand the emotional sentiment that comes with it & I get why people assume that if he came here that we would be waltzing into the CFP in no time, I’m just not gonna fall for it until I see it happen & if he plans on turning us into the same type of team he has at Oregon I definitely don’t see that happening as fast as everyone wants/thinks.

He’s absolutely a slam dunk hire on paper, just the methodology by which we go about trying to become a perennial contender IMO is much easier said than done, especially when you’re doing the way he wants to. I believe his method works in certain places, but is much harder to do at Miami than people really realize.
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I actually think the knowledgeable fans on this board (I know there's not many) understand that the Mario hiring would take more time. He's not a portal guy. He's an old school build by recruiting and stock pile talent kind of guy. He charms parents and is extremely presentable. His hiring would require some patience because our depth chart at certain positions right now is downright pathetic.

That's the danger of the Lane hire, I feel it would come with higher immediate expectations since he's more of a gameday X's and O's specialist than Mario. If Lane is the guy, I would hope he'd make every intention of retaining TRob if nothing else to help head up recruiting.
 
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