Paul Finebaum still believes in Mario Cristobal at Miami after blowout loss to Duke

Miami‘s loss to Duke in Week 8 action proved how far the Hurricanes still have to go in the rebuild of the program under Mario Cristobal. Despite the 45-21 drubbing, ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum says he still believes in the first-year head coach.

“I like Cristobal, in fact, a couple of weeks ago, I was on SportsCenter and I unloaded on the program, I said they were the biggest frauds in college football, and they are,” Finebaum said to Matt Barrie in ESPN’s Week 8 recap. “I got a text from Cristobal that night and he said, ‘Hey man, you know me, this is going to be a tough turnaround.’

“And that’s true. That doesn’t excuse losing to Duke though, which is a bigger turnaround. I do believe… that he will turn the corner.”

Although he supports Cristobal and believes in his ability to turn things around. However, he also thinks he could use help from the higher-ups – and perhaps, a new stadium.

“I think it becomes a lot more of an issue in a year or two but I can’t imagine being a Miami fan right now, it would be insufferable,” Finebaum said.

Up next for the 3-4 Canes is a road game at Virginia. Miami is a two-point favorite against the 3-4 Cavaliers. It’s an opportunity to provide the team with some much-needed momentum ahead of their Week 10 matchup versus in-state rival Florida State.

Cristobal sends clear message to players about effort

Mario Cristobal knows that building a program takes time. But after Miami suffered the blowout loss to Duke on Saturday, he had a stern — but clear — message for his players.

“Someone stops playing hard, you’ve got to go play somewhere else. What we’ve got to do requires stuff people,” Cristobal said in his postgame press conference. To turn a program, rebuild it, requires tough-minded people that are willing to do the work. If that shows up on tape, you’ve got to find somewhere else.

“Some guys have played really well, some guys have played hard. We’ll go from there.”

Miami started out hot with a 7-0 lead in the first quarter but gave up 17 unanswered points in the second quarter. After the game, Cristobal didn’t single anyone out but still made it clear he wants to see more out of his players.

“We’re improving our ability to practice, our capacity to practice … we’ve made some progress in certain areas,” Cristobal said. “Listen, that was regression… We’ve done everything we can. We’ve got to do more because whatever we’ve done has not worked. We fumbled the ball, and then we gave up some pressures that allowed them to get some sacks.

“We’ve made some progress on offense the past couple weeks and then, it looked like we were going to get off to a strong start, and we didn’t. You take complete responsibility as a head coach, as a program, and I did. It’s got to be real tough. Unfortunately, you’ve got to go through some painful steps, but we cause our own painful steps. Extra painful steps that we don’t need. Back to work.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.