Mario Cristobal identifies plan during spring transfer window

With the Miami Hurricanes Spring Game in the rearview mirror, head coach Mario Cristobal can turn his attention to the next task at hand. That’s the Spring Transfer Portal window.

Ahead of the portal opening back up, Cristobal identified his plan on how to use the portal this window.

“It starts like right now,” Mario Cristobal said. “This is a whole different phase now. The first part is making sure our people thank all the people that made this [Spring Game] happen. That’s number one.”

The Spring Transfer Portal window is set to open on Monday, April 15th. It will then be open for 15 days for players to enter the portal. However, teams can still sign players from the portal outside of that window.

For Mario Cristobal and Miami, the key step right now is to asses what the team needs and the best way to address those needs.

“Then right to what we’ve been doing. We’ve been assessing. What’re the areas that clearly need help? What are the ones that we’ve clearly improved at? What can we do well, what maybe we should get away from and not do?”

In the Winter Transfer Portal window, Miami had 20 players transfer out and 10 players transfer into the program. That left the Hurricanes with the 24th-ranked transfer portal class of the 2024 cycle, according to the On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. Among the biggest names that Miami added was quarterback Cam Ward.

One of the things that Mario Cristobal is also going to need to balance is the size of the roster. Freshmen are coming in while transfers are going out and in. However, the team can’t have more than 85 scholarship players while having less puts the team at a disadvantage.

“So, the portal — we address things first with our players. That’s the respectful way to do so, and we’ve got to get our roster to a certain number at some point in time and those are the decisions, the conversations that are had and they’re very open and transparent. You go right to it. You’ve got to be just very truthful and straightforward when it comes to that.”

Mario Cristobal looks back on recruiting process of Cam Ward

Before, ultimately, deciding to transfer to Miami, Cam Ward kept his options open, even looking into the NFL. For Mario Cristobal, it was a long but ultimately rewarding process to bring him.

“Like a lot of the recruiting battles we have. It’s always a marathon when you’re getting after it and if you truly believe in it you’ll stay with it and you’ll stick to the truth. You just recruit guys with genuine passion, with honesty, transparency, and I don’t know. There was a feeling all along that no matter how it initially played out that he wanted to be a Miami Hurricane,” Cristobal said.

“Whether he admits that later or not, I’ll say he’s full of it. But when that call came in, I didn’t know if I wanted to high-five or jump through the screen and put him in a headlock. You know? But the weight was worth it. Guys like that, we felt that, you know how it is, guys like that that can make change and make a big difference not just as a player but as a human being are–they come around not too often.”