Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal and player reaction post-Duke

OPINION: Year One of Cristobal is not going to get past initial step of University commitment … 5 Takeaways: Miami Hurricanes vs. Duke … OPINION: Loss to Duke one of most embarrassing setbacks in program history, now it’s on Cristobal to resurrect Hurricanes … CANESPORT TV: The CaneSport Postgame Show … ANALYSIS: Eight turnovers lead to 31 Duke points, Miami Hurricanes fall in ugly 45-21 loss … Grading the Miami Hurricanes: Breaking down the Duke game … Photo gallery: Miami vs. Duke

Miami Hurricanes Football: Miami HC Mario Cristobal

On the status of QB Tyler Van Dyke…

“He was banged up enough where we did not feel comfortable putting him back in. Don’t know the severity of it. Sometime tonight or tomorrow.”

On if the effort dropped off in the fourth quarter…

“We’ll see on tape. If someone’s not playing hard, they have to go play somewhere else. What we have to do requires tough people. To turn a program, rebuild it, it requires tough-minded people willing to do the work. If that shows up on tape, they have to find somewhere else [to play]. Some guys have played really well. Some guys have played hard. We’ll go from there.”

On his message to the team after the game…

“Reality. It’s not it. We’re improving our ability to practice, our capacity to practice, better…we’ve talked some good stuff. We’ve made some progress in certain areas. But that wasn’t. That was regression. After a fast start, and then in the second quarter, taking a dive. The third quarter, we came out and played with some good passion, executed well, took the lead in the game. They came back, they drove  and they scored, and then after that, all out of sorts.

“Fumbles. Ball security – huge point of emphasis. We’ve done everything we can, but we’ve got to do more, because whatever we’ve done has not worked. We fumbled the ball. We gave up some pressures that allowed them to get some sacks. Sometimes it’s turning the protection that way, sometimes they’re bringing pressure away from the protection, sometimes the ball has got to get out and sometimes it has got to be picked up. It’s a little of everything. But we got the quarterback hit. We didn’t establish the run game. We’re not knocking people back enough, like we need to, to help the pass game. We had made some progress on offense the last couple of weeks, and 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 and as a program. I get it. You have got to be real tough. Unfortunately, you have to go through some painful steps, but we caused our own painful steps. Extra painful steps that we don’t need. Back to work.”

On if he saw anything in practice that preluded Saturday’s performance…

“No. We started fast. Some of the bodies down, you have got to replace them with parts that aren’t quite the same level. But that’s ball. In terms of putting the ball on the ground and ball security, no. No, because it’s been such a huge point of emphasis. We felt like we were going to get good dividends today, but right away, up 7-0 and driving, we put the ball on the ground.”

On the performance of QB Jake Garcia…

“He had some good moments. Had some others that weren’t so good.”

On how to address any potential shortcomings in effort…

“You either fix it, and care as hard and play as you’re supposed to as a Miami Hurricane. I don’t think it’s magical. I also think it’s appropriate, also, to say someone didn’t play as hard because other teams make plays too. I think you have to look at the tape and thoroughly assess it. There’s nothing worse than saying someone didn’t play hard when they played hard.

“Maybe they got run through and didn’t tackle a guy. Maybe they weren’t able to sustain a collision and get a guy to the ground. But the rest, most importantly, of all the things, is understanding that when you go through something like this, and you’re rebuilding a program, and you get hit in the face like this, you have to be tough enough to look each other in the eye and stick together and go to work. It doesn’t magically get better. You have to go to work and that’s the only focus. That’s the only thing we’re going to do.”

On how to keep morale up when a team picks up a disappointing loss…

“You go right to the truth. You don’t head-fake it. I don’t think, at this point in time, it’s about morale. It’s about reality. The best way to build good morale is to have success and performance. The best way to do that is to go back to work and work on the things that need to get better. They’re identified. There is some progress in some. But today, regression showed up. And that’s the point that’s disappointing. There’s a lot of stuff that has shown up over the last couple of weeks that made us feel that we were going to have a positive performance today.”

On deciding to go for a fourth down with a lead in the third quarter…

“Just felt that we had some good momentum going. They had just driven the length of the field, as well. And I felt that we had some good plays drawn up to make them pay, whether they were in man coverage or were bringing a pressure or sat back and played. I felt good about the answers and felt good about being aggressive.”

On the turnovers in the fourth quarter…

“We have to assess to see if there was too much anxiety, just pressing too hard to make a play. Usually a company’s performance dips. That could be it. The game starts going on and all of a sudden you see yourself…we built our own hole. We kept digging it deeper. We didn’t do a good job coming out of it. Very real with our approach. There’s a lot of things we need to get a whole lot better at. There’s moments here and there and stuff. But the work we came here to do, we have to do a lot of work. And we’re going to do it. When it turns, we’ll look back on this as lessons. Right now, you have to eat it. You have to be a tough son of a gun. If you’re not, you know what? It isn’t going to work.”

On the tackling issues that showed up today…

“Wrap up. Work it again and again and again…until you can’t get it wrong. And keep developing. Keep developing strength and conditioning. Make sure when you wrap up, that you’re clamped so tight that nothing is slipping out. Keep developing talent and keep recruiting talent, so it can go in waves. When a backup comes in, he’s playing just as hard or better than the guy that’s in there before. Complete program development, from top to bottom. That’s what we’re focused on. Unfortunately it comes with some tough-ass days like today.”

Miami Hurricanes Football: Duke HC Mike Elko

Opening Statement….

“What an amazing statement of resiliency from this football team and this program and our coaching staff.”

“Offensively, we knew yards were going to be tough to come by. We knew we just had to keep battling and we did. We fought and we scratched, and we scratched and we fought, and at the end of the day you look up and we have 200-plus yards rushing. So, just a great opportunity for us to go out and really show people what this program is starting to become. I told the guys in the locker room, I’m incredibly proud of their fighting spirit and how they represent this program and this university. The last thing I want to say is, I know everybody probably noticed this, Charlie Ham was absent today due to a personal issue, not a performance issue. He was not at the game today and he’s dealing with some personal stuff. We’ll get that sorted out in the time to come.”

On the long third-quarter drive and overcoming penalties…

“The character of this football team. We obviously didn’t start the third quarter the way we wanted to and probably couldn’t have started it any worse if we tried. But we had to go out there and respond and that’s what really good football teams do. So, we put that drive together, we converted a third and 13, we convert a fourth and nine, and we convert a fourth and two to punch it in and take the lead back. Those kids just started to execute the plan a little bit better and that was obviously a huge drive. That’s understating to say the least, but that drive was enormous, getting the momentum back in the game to where it needed to be.”

On the stop on fourth-and-short yardage, turning the game around..

“I thought that was big, I thought that was huge. There were a couple things that happened that got the momentum back. We came out and started with the turnover, we thought we had a stop and we didn’t get it and then they wound up scoring. Then they get the ball and they start kind of marching again and obviously that fourth and one was critical. Then, I thought the response of our offense to that stop was critical and then we go out and Cam Bergeron makes an amazing play causing the fumble on the kickoff return. That really brought the momentum back in our favor and I thought we were able to keep it there for the rest of the first half.”

On winning the turnover battle and the special teams battle..

“Field position is critical and when you play really good defenses you have got to find ways to create field position. That’s just complementary football and that’s what we did. We created short fields, we caused turnovers, special teams did it, defense did it. I thought we won the field-position game. How about Todd Pelino coming out and making every single kick he attempts; he was thrust into that position. Then, Jackson Hubbard actually tweaked something early in the game, and now all of a sudden, he’s [Pelino] got to do kickoffs too. So, credit to Todd and the job he and our special teams units did today.”

On Duke’s culture change under Elko, bowl eligibility and work paying off…

“I think, obviously, your resolve gets tested when you work as hard as we have worked, and the last two games happen. You get those two back-to-back gut punches where you don’t get the result that you want to get. The resolve gets tested and for them to come out and fight through today, battle through a lot of adversity today, it certainly didn’t go smoothly, but we found a way to make plays and flip the momentum of that game. To get the result that you want going into the bye week just continues to prove to them that they control their own fate, and they have the ability to respond to whatever adversity gets thrown at them. They continue to do it, they continue to show up and make plays, and what I told them in the locker room is we’ve got to rest up, we’ve got to get healthy, and let’s go get greedy in November to see what we can really get done.”

On the potential to be Coach of the Year in the ACC and the team’s response to his coaching…

“The second part of that question I’ll respond to, the response to the messaging, the response to each other, the response to bringing pride back to Duke football means a lot to me. I told them that in the locker room, I told them I have not been more proud of a football team in 23 years. The way they keep battling and the resolve that they show, that’s special, that’s really special. It means the world to me that they are buying the messaging of this staff, that the assistant coaches are selling, that we’re all together in where we’re trying to take this program That is not lost on me in any way shape and that means an awful lot.”

On the early turnover and the defensive response to get the team on track…

“Yeah, I thought we responded, I didn’t think we went out flat, we just didn’t make plays. I think we had the fourth down that we didn’t really get the blitz run exactly the way we wanted to and they were able to kind of push that forward for a first down. Then, obviously, they were able to convert the third down touchdown and it just didn’t go the way we wanted it to. I thought we went out and fought, I certainly didn’t think we blinked. I think you saw that the rest of the half, they went out there and found ways to get stops. I think they really started feeling themselves and, obviously, the blitz plan that Rob Smith came up with today was phenomenal. I thought we really attacked their quarterback and put them under a lot of duress.”

On the start of third quarter, what was happening on the sidelines to regather the team…

“I keep saying it and it keeps showing up, and until they prove me wrong I’ll keep saying it, they don’t blink, they don’t. They are very resilient, they know they are prepared, they know they have the ability to go out and execute. When things don’t go the way we want them to and I don’t know that they could have gone any worse, they don’t blink and they just know that our ability to go out there and change our execution, change the way we’re protecting the football, change the way we’re executing our coverages, will change the result that we are getting. There’s not a lot of panic, there’s a lot of “hey, let’s go, let’s get this together.” The offense goes right out there and ‘bam’ here we go, right down the field. Even in that drive, things don’t go perfectly, we’ve got to go out there and overcome a lot more adversity, and our kids do that. It’s really, really great to see what this program is becoming.”

On the defensive improving at pass defense…

“They are continuing to work and continuing to get better, it certainly hasn’t been our strength. We certainly have seen some really talented passing offenses as well, but I think probably the biggest philosophical shift in this program is how we run pass coverage. Every single week we are getting closer to running this thing the way we want it to look. The kids are working and they are grinding and we have to continue to find ways to get the messaging clear to make sur they are comfortable with what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it and how we are trying to leverage things. Obviously, that showed up today more times than it didn’t the right way.”