Mario Cristobal shredded after Miami loses 45-21 at home to Duke
On the set of ESPN’s College GameDay before Oregon’s game against UCLA, Mario Cristobal was catching strays left and right.
Duck fans had plenty of “no refunds” signs geared at Miami and its first-year head coach. In addition to handing Cristobal a 10-year, $80 million contract to be the new coach of the Hurricanes, Miami also paid Oregon a $9 million buyout to get Cristobal out of Eugene.
The result: Oregon is 6-1 under Dan Lanning and ranked No. 8 in the latest AP Top 25 while Miami is sitting at 3-4 after getting its doors blown off by Duke, 45-21.
For Cristobal’s sake, it’s a good thing Oregon fans just had the Middle Tennessee State loss as ammo for their GameDay signs. The barbs at the former Oregon coach might have been worse had they known the Canes would lose to a team they’d beaten 47-10 a year prior. And that result came in what was Manny Diaz’s last game as the program’s head coach.
Miami wanted to recruit better. It wanted to be “back.” So it went out and backed a Brinks truck up in front of a coach viewed as one of the best recruiters in the sport.
But Cristobal’s first season at Miami has gone poorly. The program’s quarterback, Tyler Van Dyke, was viewed as one of the country’s best heading into the season and he’s been anything but.
Against Duke, The U committed eight turnovers, the most in a single game by a Power 5 team since 2009. Four of them happened in the fourth quarter, leading several pundits to suggest the team quit early on their coach.
In a 20-14 win over Virginia Tech the week prior, Miami committed 17 penalties for 159 yards.
The week before that, Miami was completely incapable of running the football.
It has been a myriad of problems for Cristobal, but none of them have looked unfamiliar to those who watched him closely before.
USA Today’s Dan Wolken shredded Miami in his Misery Index column after the game, writing: “If Miami’s administration had been level-headed about this coaching change instead of chasing the shiny object, it would have been far more cautious about Cristobal than its financial commitment indicated.”
And many others were quick to point out how different things have looked in Eugene since he departed.
Oregon rolled then-No. 9 UCLA on Saturday 45-30 for its sixth straight win. The Ducks were up 31-13 at one point in the first half on the Bruins after a 28-point second quarter that featured a successful onside kick and deep shots to wideout Troy Franklin.
Here’s some of the Cristobal chatter from the weekend:
The contrast between Mario Cristobal's old team and Mario Cristobal's new team is quite stark right now.
Offense rarely looked like this before Lanning/Dillingham arrived.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) October 22, 2022
A reminder that the University of Miami is so bad in the Cristobal era that even the ACC Network doesn't carry its games against ACC rivals
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) October 22, 2022
https://twitter.com/alex_kirshner/status/1583878686616342528
https://twitter.com/JohnMichaelsU/status/1583902898320134144
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who followed his career at Oregon that Mario Cristobal is struggling. He’s exhibit A of coaches who think that football is played strictly on recruiting websites and not on the field
— Aria Gerson (@aria_gerson) October 22, 2022
🚨MELTDOWN ALERT! 🚨#Miami fans are mad! And they’re glad their QB got injured. pic.twitter.com/LjPdzlDiEA
— Message Board Geniuses (@BoardGeniuses) October 22, 2022
https://twitter.com/KJSpinooch/status/1583906602691702785
There’s enough evidence at two different schools now to say that Mario Cristobal just isn’t a good in-game/X’s and O’s coach. Can recruit and build a stable program but they’ll always lose games they shouldn’t because the on field product stinks.
— Mike Settle Jr (@settleml92) October 22, 2022
watching Cristobal's Miami football is like watching a bad version of Cristobal's Oregon football
— Arrogant Nation✌🏻 (@FightOnRusty) October 22, 2022