How Mario Cristobal keeps the Miami Hurricanes focused on the task at hand after their first setback
Mario Cristobal has preached the mantra all season. Regardless of the external expectations, the outside noise, the understandable chatter about the expectations surrounding his Miami Hurricanes team, all Cristobal wanted his players to focus on every week is “going 1-0.” Focus on the task at hand. Don’t overlook what’s in front of them or think ahead to the end goal. It’s cliche, yes.
But at this point, that mentality has to be reality more than ever. All of their goals — making the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game, a berth in the 12-team College Football Playoff and, ultimately, a shot at a national championship — are still in reach. But after their first loss of the season — a 28-23 loss to Georgia Tech on Nov. 9 — the Hurricanes (9-1, 5-1 ACC) have basically no wiggle room to work for any of those goals to have a chance of becoming reality. They have two games left — two more opportunities in which they have to go 1-0 — to keep those hopes alive. That starts at noon Saturday with their home game against Wake Forest (4-6, 2-4 ACC). “Any day that we’re coaching, it’s going to be the same thing,” Cristobal said Monday at his weekly news conference. “There’s too much going on in the outside world. There’s too much clutter. There’s too much coverage and heightened noise to really do anything else but make sure your guys are focused on the test at hand and even streamlining it even more — the practice at hand, the meeting that you’re about to walk into, the walk-through that you’re taking part in. So without a doubt, it’s been emphasized we’re going to continue along the lines of that.
” USING BYE WEEK TO GET BACK ON TRACK The Hurricanes had an extra week to stew over what went wrong against Georgia Tech and how to correct it. Miami’s second bye week of the season came after the loss to the Yellow Jackets, one in which Miami struggled on third downs (3 for 10 on offense; 9 for 14 allowed on defense) and got gashed defensively on the ground (a season-high 271 rushing yards allowed). The Hurricanes’ offense, which lead all Football Bowl Subdivision teams with an average of 45 points per game, scored a season-low 23 points against Georgia Tech — its first time scoring fewer than 36 in a game this season — and couldn’t pull off a comeback victory like it has three other times this season when trailing by double digits in the second half. “Everybody kind of goes through the checklist of blame,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said, “but we have to be better on critical downs. The game went about like I knew it was going to go. I knew they were going to hold the ball, and I knew our possessions were going to be low, so our plays were going to be low.
You’ve got to take advantage when they’re low, and we pressed a little bit and did some uncharacteristic things on critical downs that cost us.” The defense, which has bent but not broken on multiple occasions this season, couldn’t get key stops once the offense began to find its rhythm. Since ACC play began, Miami’s defense has given up an average of 372.5 yards and 31.7 points per game. “We needed a bye week,” defensive coordinator Lance Guidry said. “We looked at a lot of things. We looked at that game, but we looked at other plays. We looked at other third-down situations that maybe we didn’t do well in, and just the other games and constant things that have happened to us. You always do that in open week and try to get better at what you do and scheme things a little differently.” As the Hurricanes attempt to right the shape and keep their season alive, Cristobal said he is making sure the team doesn’t put too much pressure on itself following the loss. Their practice routine and intensity level has remained the same. He’s not altering how they approach game week. “We’re gonna deal with it and adapt,” Cristobal said.
“This team and every member of the staff took that loss hard, so without getting into any of the generic ‘wake-up call’ or all those taglines and whatnot, it increases your awareness or the fact that college football is difficult and winning is difficult. When you have 10 games or 11 games on tape and if you have things that you need to correct and you’re not all the way there, you’re going to get hit on that week after week. That’s why the bye week has been so valuable. We’ve had time to work on communication, which is critically important, alignment and assignment. All those things done well provide confidence. You play fast. You play hard. We have to do a better job coaching it, and I think we have. Players have done a better job learning it — I think they have — and we’re looking forward to putting that action on Saturday.”
