Miami Hurricanes Coach Mario Cristobal is adjusting fast as he looks ahead to fall scrimmage No. 2

Whenever a head football coach takes a new job, there always are a million adjustments. One of the biggest for Mario Cristobal is that the University of Miami academic calendar is based on semesters. At Oregon there was a quarters system.

So what does that mean?

It means that fall classes start Monday, which means that players go on a 20-hour a week schedule that reduces the time that coaches can work with them. So there is a sense of urgency as the weekend approaches with Scrimmage 2 of the fall on tap Saturday afternoon.

“The true test comes when all of a sudden you add school to it, right,” Cristobal said. “All of a sudden the simplicity of having your snack ready. Oh, you better make sure you find a way to prepare doublybecause you are going to be jammed up in classes and going to a tutor before you gotta hurry on back for a 6:45 meeting.

On the west coast, you didn’t have classes for four or five weeks.  So that’s something for me to get used to.”

Cristobal looked ahead to the team’s second fall scrimmage after Friday’s work on Greentree Practice Field.

“Tomorrow is really important. It’s important that they stay focused on tomorrow,” Cristobal said. “So we will stay the course and all focus on (the scrimmage) tomorrow then get into how we handle Tuesday and Wednesday, leading up to the latter part of the week where you start transitioning (into game week). But until then, there’s there’s still plenty to work. We’re trying to squeeze 10 years into seven months.

“We want to test our players and challenge our players. We want to train great, elite competitive responses. We want to continue to improve our levels of conditioning, communication, alignments, our physicality, our ability to finish plays, finish drives, stop drives, knock the line of scrimmage back, anything related to playing good football. We want to show more maturity in making really good decisions during plays. We want to make sure that our technique and fundamentals take another step. We want to make sure that we mix and match a couple more personnel combinations on both sides of the ball. And we want to finsd out who is for real. We’ll find out who are the best guys and we want to see who stands up to the challenge.”

Cristobal is putting the same challenge to his coaching staff too.

Every single part of their processes will be tested out,” Cristobal said. “It will be challenged tomorrow. They understand what the competitive nature of our team has to be. It has to apply to our coaching staff, including myself.”

Cristobal can’t rave enough about the play of Quarterback Tyler Van Dyke, who is conjuring up memories of Cristobal’s two years with San Diego Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert at Oregon. But Miami is looking for replacements for Charleston Rambo and Mike Harley. Van Dyke can’t thrive if his receivers don’t step up and so far the only real consistent guy in practices has been Xavier Restrepo.

“He (van Dyke) is going against a defense that can cover well and they can put pressure on the quarterback,” Critobal said. “And you lost your two most productive playmakers from last year. Those guys, you watch there’s a lot of third and long, go up and make a play.

“We need to find that. We have to find that. If you come to Miami, you have to have the want to, the ability to make that happen. And we’re still trying to find where that is.”

One place where Van Dyke has been especially impressive has been in his depth of understanding Josh Gattis’ offense.

“Whenever you’re a quarterback and you take on a new system, it does take some time. He has accelerated that time and has done really well,” Cristobal said. “And he understands ball. Not every quarterback understands protections and what comes with it and how to get yourself into a good one (play) and out of a bad one. And maybe getting an advantage run play or what not. He does. He understands leverage. He understands disguised coverages. He’s really good, really, really good pre to post snap coverage and being able to make a decision. This guy is special.”

A big part of fall camp has been continuing to build a new culture. People in the program have been raving about how well the players have bought into that.

“There’s not a lot of wavering? I mean, there’s no there’s no going back. We’re not going to compromise that.,” Cristobal said. “I don’t know. I’m not sure exactly what every parent wants for their son. I know that my sons, if they are good enough to go somewhere. I want them around awesome people that work their tails off, that are high level professionals and have a super high care factor and are going to hold them accountable. To make sure they get a great education. To make sure they understand the principles of respect, the importance of words like please and thank you.

“They go with everything you do. So how you do anything is how you do everything. That’s a real way of life. And it’s going to be real. And it’s not going to change. So, guys got to be about that life. You know, we’ve had a really good response and a lot of improvement.”