Miami recruiting philosophy reflective of Jimmy Johnson's message to Mario Cristobal as a recruit

The Miami Hurricanes have built a top recruiting class in the country and coach Mario Cristobal attributes that success to their philosophy. The Hurricanes are currently have the No. 6 recruiting class in college football, according to the On3 Consensus Team Rankings.

While speaking at a media availability session on Tuesday, Cristobal explained that he doesn’t try to reveal his entire strategy for recruiting to the public — although the roots of his philosophy tie back to his time playing under coach Jimmy Johnson.

Miami’s recruiting philosophy under Mario Cristobal

“We don’t put our philosophy out — I don’t like to put a lot of stuff out there as it relates to recruiting,” started Cristobal. “We do what we do, it’s real simple. We make it real clear that when you commit to Miami, make sure you want to commit to Miami. And make sure when you do, that you do what I did as a player. And Jimmy Johnson told me, he asked me ‘do you want to win?’ I said of course I want to win. And he said ‘well you better recruit.’

“And he says, ‘I don’t mean just sell the program,’ but go find the guys and talk to us and tell us about the guys that can help us take that next step. He says ‘you know how we work — we grind.’ We have great teachers, we have guys that are arguably the most renowned staff for developing talent and helping the guys achieve next-level success as well.

“So make sure that you’re finding guys that are attracted to that type of a blueprint, that type of a regiment. That’s the message to our guys. We spend a lot of time around them, we’re very honest and open and genuine with them. So the relationships are real. And you stay the course. You don’t come off of that and along the way we expect to build this class even more. But we feel that certainly there’s a lot of momentum and the best is yet to come.”

Cristobal’s explanation definitely goes a long way to explaining his success off the field as he takes over as Miami’s coach. Cristobal played for the Hurricanes under Johnson and learned first-hand that the program should view recruiting as a full-team effort. The players want to succeed during their time with the team, so they absolutely are able to influence recruits to come join them if they could help the team improve.