Mario Cristobal addresses Miami's health as camp ends

The health of a football team prior to the season is most important and Miami is no exception according to Mario Cristobal.

The Hurricanes go into Year 2 under their head coach and he wanted to make sure everyone was good to go after a tough camp. Cristobal runs a very physical camp, so injuries are common in the preseason.

But it looks like Miami is a step ahead of where it was last year.

Last year we had some devastating ones early,” Cristobal said. “We haven’t had that, you know, knock on wood and may that not happen. But they have had a physical camp, and it’s structured that way. It’s that plan, that blueprint has stood the test of time for a long, long time and we use it and we stick to it. 

“We modify when we have to, when there are some issues. But the issues that we have are more just the riggers that come with camp so overall feel like we’re in a decent spot.”

It wasn’t an easy first year for Miami under Cristobal. The Hurricanes finished 5-7 after some expected the team to compete right away in the ACC.

Cristobal maintained the team was building and wasn’t going to put the cart before the horse.

“Well, I think every year you always hit the restart button,” Cristobal said. “For us, and coming and the whole, I guess, the what back question is, I mean, we’re always building, whether we have a seasoned team or whether we have a new team. We’re just focused on getting better in everything we do.” 

Cristobal even said Miami’s performance in the classroom improved, echoing his message of getting better everywhere.

“Today we have class, we just had our highest GPA that we’ve had in football program history,” Cristobal said. “We got to do better there. You know, our practices, our tempo is much higher. Our ability to sustain longer drives, extended play drives has improved and we want to execute better. We want to play winning football. And to play winning football, you got to practice winning football.”

Getting to the top of the mountain is difficult enough, but Cristobal and Miami definitely improved the level of competition within the program to get better.

“So the level of competition has been pushed,” Cristobal said. “It has been recruited. It has been organized in a manner where we’re going to get the best out of people or you know, people are going to show exactly where they stand, and whether we could count on them or not, and where they can earn the trust of their teammates and their coaches. 

“So the best way I could define it is there’s been a lot of progress in camp, and it’s got to transfer over to game day and our job between now and then is to make sure we get them to the best point physically and mentally to make that transition that transfer reality.”