Mario Cristobal reminisces on being recruited to Miami as a player with incredible story

Mario Cristobal has had quite a month on the recruiting trail at Miami. As it turns out, he’s taking a page out of the book from the 1980s when the Hurricanes recruited him.

Before Cristobal played at Miami from 1989-92, he took an official visit while Michael Irvin played for the Hurricanes. He was a name Cristobal dropped while recounting the story of his official visit, which helped sell him on the Miami program under Jimmy Johnson and, later, Dennis Erickson.

That visit stood out — and understandably so.

“I wasn’t very highly recruited. Not by Miami,” Cristobal said at the ACC Football Kickoff. “I swear, Michael Irvin — I remember being on my official visit, thought I was going to get, you know, a nice, royal treatment and what not. Man, it was one of those feelings like, ‘Brother, you better come here. We’re going to kick your butt. It’s that easy.’ That’s the way my recruiting was approached.

“Recruiting has changed, but I was recruited by very passionate coaches that made me come to practice. They made me watch. Are you attracted to this and watching Jerome Brown and Gregg Rakoczy take each other and knock each other back and just about go WWE style on each other? And Michael Irvin and Benny Blade staying after practice and running one-on-ones looking like a Super Bowl overtime matchup. You can go on and on. … This was unbelievable.”

Mario Cristobal on how his time at Miami impacts the culture he’s building

Some aspects of that visit made their way into Cristobal’s growing culture in Miami, and Cristobal said that’s by design. He said recruits will get the same experience he had — watching the Hurricanes prepare and see the effort they put in first-hand.

“I was attracted to that, and I thought that the guys in the locker room that made that team go, they loved that,” Cristobal said. “They weren’t caught up in anything else but that type of culture. So part of our plan is we get people there to watch us train, work to see if they really are attracted to that because that’s what it’s going to take to be a part of our program.”

After Cristobal’s hiring, Miami hauled in the No. 11 recruiting class from the class of 2022, according to the On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Ranking. But the Hurricanes have been red-hot this month on the 2023 trail, putting together the No. 7 class in the country.

Five-star offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa is the biggest piece so far, coming in as the nation’s No. 7 overall player, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.