CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Luis Cristobal Sr. was always juggling at least two jobs. Clara Cristobal worked at an auto dealership well into her 70s. They were Cuban-Americans, didn't know English when they came to the U.S, were extremely proud of their heritage, the sort of people who embraced hard work, saved their highest respect for others cut from the same cloth and tried to set the right example as parents.
It wasn't easy for their kids. Mario Cristobal makes no secret about that.
“Grades had to be a certain way and there was no straying from doing the right thing," Cristobal said. "And we weren’t perfect, but we had unbelievable, hard-nosed, tough and demanding parents that we maybe didn’t understand at the time but today we're extremely grateful for.”
He is the coach at the University of Miami and he runs his team the way his parents ran their family. Hard-nosed. Tough. Demanding. Luis and Clara had plans and hope, trying to build a life. They got there. Mario Cristobal came back to Miami four years ago with a plan and with hope, looking to build a champion. He could get there Monday night when his Hurricanes play undefeated Indiana in the College Football Playoff championship game at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami's home field.
“I remember me and Coach Cristobal talking on the phone for the first time,” Miami quarterback Carson Beck said, recalling how he committed to the Hurricanes 12 months ago for his final college season and with playing in this game the sole goal. “I was sitting in Jacksonville in my house in my room, and I just had a big smile on my face and he had a big smile on his face. He said, ‘Let’s get to work.’ I believed in his vision. I believed in what he’s been able to build here and add on to the culture of what Miami is.”
Miami (13-2, No. 10 AP, CFP) is seeking its sixth national championship. It would be Cristobal's third with the Hurricanes, to go along with two won as a player. Indiana (15-0, No. 1 AP, CFP) is seeking its first. Cristobal's path is a logical, obvious storyline: Local kid comes home, to his alma mater, and returns it to glory after about a quarter-century of sputtering.
It is also a storyline that Cristobal wants absolutely no part of.
“I spend more time appreciating the people around me and the opportunity that comes with it and pouring out any feelings that might arise in that manner," Cristobal said. "That kind of thought process, I give those feelings a direction and the direction is process. It’s practice. It’s regimentation. It's just finding ways to get one more yard, one more point, one more stop and helping our guys just take in the game plan in a manner where they can play as fast and as physical as they possibly can.
"So, it is not about me. I can assure you that every ounce in me is dedicated to those around me.”
That is basically what he said when he took over at FIU before the 2007 season, what at the time quite possibly was the worst major college program in America a few miles away from Miami's campus. And that's also what he said when he took over at Oregon eight years ago, and what he said again when he came home to Miami. He preaches family, he preaches hard work, he preaches togetherness. He does not deviate.
“He's a dawg, man,” Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. said. “When you’re the top dawg, that’s all you can create. ... It’s a guy that will get the job done no matter what. He loves adversity. That’s what a dawg is. He will push through it.”
Fletcher knows all about Cristobal's famous intensity, fueled by Cuban coffee, which may as well be the official beverage of Miami. He also has seen the softer side. Fletcher's father died last season, the same week that Miami was getting ready to play rival Florida State. Every Miami player went to the funeral; Cristobal arranged a fleet of buses and adjusted the game-week schedule to make it happen.
“That's who he is,” Fletcher said. “He'll do anything for us.”
Taking some lumps
Cristobal's first season at Miami was 2022, when the Hurricanes lost at home to Middle Tennessee State and then got absolutely humbled at home by the Seminoles, 45-3. It showed how far Miami had to go.
“Trust me, no one feels this more than I do,” a visibly angry Cristobal said that night. “I hate it for our people. I hate it for our fans. I hate it for our players. We’re in a building process. We’re laying a foundation and got to go to work and it ain’t fun. Days like this are really painful. There’s no excuse or sidestepping it or sugarcoating it. That’s why I came here. Got to go to work. Got to do lots of it.”
They went 5-7 that season, 7-6 the next season, stuck in neutral. Then their fortunes began to change. The Hurricanes — who are on their way to a third straight highly ranked recruiting class — reached No. 4 in the AP Top 25 last season led by No. 1 draft pick Cam Ward, before a late fade. Cristobal made headlines again in a postgame news conference last season, saying “all recruits, in-state, out of state, can now clearly see the trajectory of this program versus the other programs” in Florida.
“We're getting closer,” Cristobal said when the season was over. “Keep working.”
That's what they did. They landed Beck and other key contributors in the transfer portal. They made a statement by beating then-No. 6 Notre Dame to start the season; that three-point win was ultimately the margin that got Miami into the CFP field and left the Fighting Irish out of the bracket. They won the state title, as they call it in the Sunshine State, by beating South Florida, Florida State and Florida.
They got to No. 2 in the AP poll before a midseason sputter saw them fall to 6-2 and on the brink of losing all chance of getting to the playoff. A loss at SMU, in the eyes of many pundits, doomed Miami’s season.
That's when everything changed. A team meeting was held. Raw, harsh, honest words were said. The season could have fallen apart. It didn't. Resolve suddenly became steeled. Cristobal's primary mantra — go 1-0 this week — took hold. Everything started to click for the Hurricanes. They haven't lost since, going a perfect 7-0 and with the last five of those games away from home.
They're now a game away from being national champions.
A simple approach
“There’s no way to go forward and achieve the things we want to achieve unless we are put to the ultimate test," Cristobal said. “And we’re grateful for those tests and we look forward to preparing to the best of our abilities to go be 1-0 again.”
This simple approach goes back to those lessons Mario Cristobal learned as a kid. Just show up and do the job. It may as well be the family credo.
Making Miami a champion again is the ultimate goal for the 55-year-old Cristobal, whose brother Lou also played for the Hurricanes. He sees the school as an extension of his own family — “this place is everything to us,” Mario Cristobal says. He changed the way Miami recruited, changed the way it practiced, changed the way it did everything. The university committed all the resources he needed and wanted, stepping up in ways the administration never had before.
Even now, this week as the team is getting ready to play for a title, the back of Miami's indoor practice facility is draped in plastic. The wall is getting demolished to expand the building. Greentree Practice Field is Cristobal's mecca, the patch of grass that he played on as a kid, coaches on today and still considers sacred ground. He's happiest there with nobody watching.
“It’s the foundation of everything," Cristobal said. "You know, the secret is out there in the dirt. Put your hand in it and go to work. It’s decades and decades of brotherhood that was forged in the grind. And I'm forever grateful for it. Got my head and teeth kicked in by it every single day as a freshman, a redshirt freshman, and what I soon found out is it’s kind of a rite of passage. Taken in by a brotherhood that changed my brother and my life forever.”
When his playing days at Miami were done, Cristobal considered a pro career and then pivoted toward joining the U.S. Secret Service. He had an opportunity to do that before deciding that his best path was coaching.
Miami, finally, called to bring him home in 2021. Cristobal agonized for days about what to do. Oregon was a job he loved. He had the program, he felt, in perfect position. But Miami was home. His mother was ailing. It all made sense for a Hurricane to become a Hurricane again.
“It was time for all of us to join together and give back to Miami,” Cristobal said.
Clara Cristobal died in the spring of 2022 after being ill for several months, unable to really communicate at times in her final weeks. Her funeral was the day of the very first spring practice of the Cristobal era at Miami. He led the practice, then went to say good-bye. To this day, he believes that is what she would have wanted.
“If she could speak when I saw her, she’d say, ‘Get your butt back to work. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be working and doing your job because people depend on you,'" Cristobal said. “And therefore, that’s always my understanding of how it’s supposed to be.”
The Hurricanes are back in the national spotlight. To him, that's how it's supposed to be.
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