“You say the reality – we won 10 games this year and not many teams have,” Cristobal said on 560 AM. “In our losses, those losses came down to one possession. That’s a very different resume than 9-3. Look at common opponents to some of those different programs, we do have some common opponents, ones we have more convincing wins against or flat out beat in terms of common opponents as opposed to others. We won 10, other programs didn’t.”
What is Cristobal’s gut feeling on the chances of making the playoffs?
“My gut is always go to the facts,” Cristobal said. “We’ve won 10 games and other teams haven’t. We’ve had our ups and downs defense, our rankings on offense and defense are top 25. There are seven teams in the country that have that. Common opponents, opponents we’ve dominated, other teams that lost to an opponent we played and had our way with them at their place – go to the facts, reward teams for winning football games.”
On kicking the field goal instead of going for it:
“Always process oriented,” Cristobal said. “Fourth and goal from the 10 is a really, really low percentage conversion play. We relied all year on analytics, and it’s been very good for us. We did so there at well t thinking four minutes with the ability to stop the clock three times, that is what it pointed to. So we went with it, it didn’t work out. But we relied on it all year and it’s been good for us.”
"We gave ourselves a shot at the end. Heck, four minutes (left) we thought we could make them one-dimensional (with the run since Syracuse needed to run clock) – they popped a couple of runs. All in all, not a good day.”
On the defense in general:
“Sometimes we didn’t communicate well enough, other times we were out of position. Other times they flat out made a play. Their passing game, the ball is out. They protect, get it out. The precision of their route running is really, really good. We had early success, after that it was spotty. And we hurt ourselves with penalty, some techniques, fundamental stuff.
On signing day:
Cristobal stressed that the key is to stay level-headed and not get caught up in the whole money aspect, with the need to evaluate those players who are going to work hard to get better and be dedicated to the cause.
“People are going to overbid to make a splash and fun and high fives (on signing day) – you have to assess, is it worth it or are we better off investing in something else,” Cristobal said.
