With embarrassing, historic home loss to Duke, Miami hits its nadir in Year 1 under Mario Cristobal

Halloween is still a little more than a week away, but outside of Miami’s opening possession touchdown against Duke, the rest of the Hurricanes’ drive chart Saturday looked like a horror show. 

And seven games into the Mario Cristobal era down in Coral Gables, that’s essentially what Miami’s 2022 season has been so far, too. 

The Hurricanes coughed up the football an astounding eight times — the most by any FBS team this season, per College Football Reference — in a 45-21 blowout loss at home to the Blue Devils. 

While first-year coach Mike Elko has Duke (5-3, 2-2 ACC) soaring past its preseason expectations and positioned to make a first bowl game in five years, Cristobal has returned home and taken a Hurricanes program that was over being patient and somehow made it worse.

Much like Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame, Year 1 was never supposed to be a Year 0 for Mario Cristobal. 

The Canes are now 3-4, dropping four of their last five games including three home losses. With Florida State, Clemson and Pitt still on the schedule, postseason play looks like a precious proposition right now.

MARIO CRISTOBAL DIDN’T INHERIT A REBUILD AT MIAMI

Last December, the Hurricanes fired Manny Diaz explicitly because they were tired of waiting for results.

There were signs of promise, particularly from a young roster with a ballyhooed quarterback in Tyler Van Dyke, but they moved on from Diaz, who won five of his final six games in 2021 when the stars aligned to bring Cristobal home. 

It took $80 million over 10 years to pluck for the former Miami OL away from Oregon to return to South Florida, and the sticker shock of that deal only looks worse each Saturday as the Canes take the field. 

Miami has visibly regressed under Cristobal in 2022. 

Van Dyke, who suffered a game-ending injury in the loss to Duke, is noticeably worse operating under an offense that doesn’t best utilize his skills. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes’ defense has been shredded by the likes of MTSU and Duke. 

It’s not just that Miami is losing games in Mario Cristobal’s first season. It’s that they’ve had galactic meltdowns, poor showings and inexplicable in-game coaching. 

Against Texas A&M, Cristobal kept settling for field goals when the Hurricanes needed touchdowns. In the loss to MTSU, the Hurricanes allowed multiple touchdowns over 69 yards. They couldn’t score in the red zone and fumbled on 4th-and-1 versus North Carolina. 

Even their win last weekend against a bad Virginia Tech team was ugly, narrowing getting out of Blacksburg with a victory after committing a season-high 17 penalties. 

But Saturday was the nadir.

They fumbled the ball five times, with three interceptions by backup Jake Garcia, too. The eight turnovers matched the team’s season total entering Week 8 — and was the most by a Power 5 school in 13 years. Duke rushed the ball for 200 yards and racked up six sacks.

“Obviously, not good. Not a good performance in every respect,” Cristobal said, who multiple times already this season has admitted his team has been out-coached. 

Maybe the turnover chain wasn’t the problem, Chief. 

Cristobal has talked a lot about “process” in recent weeks. He’s spoken about getting Miami “back to a certain level.”

Well, he inherited a roster that had more blue-chippers than any school in the ACC not named Clemson and just lost by 24 to a Duke team that went 0-8 in the conference a year ago. 

It’s inexcusable, especially in the era of the transfer portal. 

Miami should not be this bad. 

They entered the year in the preseason Top 10, with the expectations to take a step forward and return to national relevancy. They were pushing “a Miami is back” narrative.

Instead, the Hurricanes have taken two giant leaps backwards, and Cristobal is already fielding questions about whether or not his players quit for the second time this season. 

“We will see on tape,” he said on if his team lacked effort in the fourth quarter against Duke. 

“If somebody stops playing hard, they have to go play somewhere else. What we have to do requires tough people. To turnaround a program and rebuild it requires tough minded people that are willing to do the work.”

Rebuild?

It wasn’t billed as one. This wasn’t supposed to be this hard. 

Miami coughed up a truckload of cash to convince Cristobal to leave Oregon because it wanted to win now. They’re paying him $8 million annually with one of the most expensive coaching staffs in the country to compete with the likes of Clemson — not suffer their worst loss to Duke in school-history.  

Well, not only is Cristobal not delivering on those expectations, but Miami fans — the ones who exist in real life and not just as angry Twitter trolls — have to grapple with the fact that Cristobal’s former team looks even better under new management. 

Times are tense down in South Florida. Much like their fumblitis Saturday, all that offseason optimism has been coughed away.

The bad news is things do not look like they’ll improve anytime soon in the 2022 season. Their secondary is a turnstile, same for their offensive line. They’re not suddenly going to get any faster or more explosive at receiver, either.  

The good news is Cristobal, who I should note is in absolutely no danger of being fired, is two short (or perhaps long depending on your viewpoint) months away from getting to the part of the college football calendar where he excels the most: Recruiting SZN.