Mario Cristobal on Week 1 film takeaways: 'Progress'

The Miami Hurricanes picked up their first win of the season in Week 1 against the Miami of Ohio Redhawks. Head coach Mario Cristobal‘s team defended their home field, winning convincingly 38-3.

While it felt good for the program to get their first win of the season in week one, the Miami headman wasn’t just fixated on the final score. Following Miami’s victory, on Monday, Cristobal detailed his takeaways from the season opener game film while highlighting his biggest takeaway from the game.

“Progress,” said Cristobal. “Solid performance in a lot of different areas, especially as it relates to tackling (and) blocking. We had one negative play, and it was because Emory was scrambling late. It was a little bit of a coverage sack.

“Up front, there was an improvement. And a lot of improvement to be made at that position: Hand placement, movement, identifications, leverage, angles, all that stuff. But there certainly is progress, which we are excited about. And I think our players watched the film and they left there with an appetite to get better.

“They brought it upon themselves to continue working hard, practice harder, get in better game shape. But overall, just being around our team, for the past several months, it wasn’t a shock that the conversations were centered around improvement; so it’s a really good place to be.”

Miami’s progress will be put to the test in week two as they take on the Texas A&M Aggies. Last season, the Hurricanes fell on the road to the Aggies 17-9. However, with the progress Cristobal has seen from his team in 2023, Miami stands a good chance of exacting revenge on Sept 9.

Cristobal opens up on challenges in facing a Bobby Petrino offense

One of the challenges Cristobal’s defense will have to deal with against Texas A&M is a revamped offensive scheme led by one of the top offensive minds in college football Bobby Petrino. As the Miami headman explained, there are several challenges that the team is going to need to manage when facing Petrino’s offense.

“It’s a lot of years of great offenses, right,” Mario Cristobal said. “He’s done it every way imaginable. He knows how to use his pieces, they’ve got some great pieces over there — They got off to a great start. They got a great quarterback and he’s got some great supporting cast members.”

Bobby Petrino has long since been considered a keen offensive mind. It’s that mind that has landed him head coaching jobs in the NFL and with the Arkansas Razorbacks, and the Louisville Cardinals. More recently, Petrino was the Missouri State head coach and was set to become UNLV‘s offensive coordinator before taking the same job at Texas A&M.

“The most important thing is making sure that we study film really well and that our plan is as airtight as it could possibly be to give our players a chance to play fast and free,” Cristobal said.