On3 Roundtable: Where Miami stands in Mario Cristobal's quest to build dominant offensive line

There is hope that Miami will be much-improved in Year 2 under Mario Cristobal after going 5-7 in his first season. In order for that to happen, the Hurricanes need to be much better up front on the offensive line.

Miami ranked No. 95 nationally in yards per carry last season at 3.74, while allowing 3 sacks per game, which ranked No. 109 nationally.

Gary Ferman of CaneSport recently joined JD PicKell on the On3 Roundtable and discussed why the Miami offensive line should be much better this season after adding some impact transfers.

“Well, I mean look at what has been done here just in recent months,” Ferman said of Cristobal. “You bring in Matt Lee – a guy who’s going to be an NFL center – from UCF and the portal to play center. You bring in Javion Cohen, a starting level player from Alabama, to start at one guard position.”

Lee was a three-year starter at UCF, before transferring to the Hurricanes. He was a multi-year all-conference performer for the Knights.

Cohen started 10 games last season at Alabama, while earning second-team All-SEC honors.

In addition to bringing in talented players from the transfer portal, Miami also signed a talented recruiting class that was ranked No. 6 nationally by the On3 Industry rankings.

The class is led by a couple of five-star offensive linemen who are expected to come in and contribute immediately in Francis Mauigoa and Samson Okunlola.

“You sign two five-star tackles in Francis Mauigoa and Samson Okunlola. I mean Francis is going to start at right tackle. I’m not personally convinced that Samson is not going to end up as the starter at left tackle,” Ferman said. “I saw him [recently] at the practice facility. He looks so good physically. And it’s just a matter of him catching up to the game speed at the college level, because he did play up there at Massachusetts at a little bit of a lower level of high school ball and this has been an adjustment for him.”

Mario Cristobal has big plans for the Miami offensive line and knows how important the position group is as he works to build a program that can compete for championships.

Ferman believes Cristobal is in the process of putting together a dominant offensive line.

“The bottom line is, you take them and you mix it with a Jalen Rivers, maybe a Zion Nelson comes back,” Ferman said. “Mario Cristoball feels that he is on his way to building what he is planning to be the best offensive line to ever play at the University of Miami within the next year or two.”