Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal and player reaction post Florida A&M

Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal and players weigh in after the Canes’ game vs. Florida A&M.

Tune in for what they are saying:

Opening Statement…

“Okay, everybody. I appreciate you being here and good evening to everybody. I hope you guys enjoyed the game. Fast start and then offensively, got in a little bit of a rut there. [We] made some careless errors. We’ve got to coach and play that part better, but a really good response in the second half, albeit some of the penalties, the post-half penalties, which we have to be better at but, all in all, it was good to play a lot of players tonight. Certainly, a lot of young guys got action and actually played at a high level, particularly the defensive line. They seemed to let relentless pressure on the quarterback and do a good job stopping the run. Good to see those freshman linebackers get in there and get a couple interceptions, as well. All in all, we handled our business and lots of areas to get better at.”

On the repetitions for the younger players.

“There’s nothing like repetition. Nothing. There’s nothing that you can do in practice. There’s nothing you can do in a meeting room or a walk-through that can ever replace the value of that. The value of those reps is tremendous, so that’s why we kept playing. I think both sides respect that. They want their guys to get reps and we want our guys to get reps. You saw a lot. I don’t know the actual number of players who actually played, but most of the roster.”

On the offensive line…

“Jalen [Rivers] was a little bit banged up, so we decided to hold him this week. I think he’ll be back really soon. There’s nothing that is too serious there, but it was the right thing to do. And I’m proud of Markell [Bell]. I know he had the one holding call but we kind of ring-around-the-rosie’d that, right, and that’s hard to protect, but he played really well. I thought he played really well.”

On the depth of the team…

“Yeah, you know, the honest truth is that we have got to do a better job coaching the other half of the roster and developing it and the players. All of us, we just have got to do a better job getting that side developed because that’s the reality of it. Games are going to come down to who is next that steps in and not during just mop up duty, during critical times. We have a very strong commitment to developing those guys in practice, spending extra time with them, watching film, learning the systems so that they can actually go out there and not only compete, but bring value to the team. So, yeah, I can’t stress the value enough.”

On the player of Tyler Baron…

“He’s built like an avatar and he’s just explosive and just [has] one of the most natural feels for the game of anyone I’ve seen. He understands leverage angles. He’s really smart. He’s locked in. He’s in tune with what is going on. He’s always trying to figure out how to get better. He works hard. He’s tough. He checks all the boxes and now he’s full throttle and I think he’s showing everybody what he’s about. That guy is another hungry, driven dude. We’ve been blessed with some really good players who have come to our program and it’s our job to push them and help get them better.”

On Florida A&M quarterback Daniel Richardson…

“Great player, tough. That guy knows how to play football. He’s been playing football for a long, long time. [He] extends plays. He is on time with the ball, [has] great pocket-awareness, accurate…He’s not afraid. I just saw him in the hallway right now. Certainly, wished him the best with the rest of the season. I respect him, Coach Colzie, the rest of their team. They are a bunch of really good football players and tough guys who are going to have a great season.”

On run game versus pass game… 

“Well, it’s never a pre-set determination. Our coordinators, they put together good game plans and, when those guys get on a roll, you let them go and if something doesn’t quite work out, they’re always assessing. We’re always assessing together moving forward. You want to think about questioning this or questioning that. You know, in football, the entire time, these guys are trying to find ways to get yards and get points and move the sticks, get the ball to certain guys, which we have got to stay engaged. Sometimes, we don’t get the ball to guys and they get a little bit disengaged and you can’t do that…But there’s no set number of snaps we want to hand the ball off.”

On the play of Zaquan Patterson…

“He was locked in. He was locked in. He had an interesting realization this week that was like, ‘man, this college football stuff is hard. It requires a lot of time and I got to learn my stuff to be effective and be successful.’ And that he was going to do it. He had much better practices and he really trusted it going out there to play and he did not disappoint. He’s another one that we have to continue to do a really good job of developing.”

On the play of Cam Ward…

“You can see what he brings to the table and what he’s not bringing to the table. That is kind of what the question is now. For us, not the challenge but the exciting part about a guy like that is you find ways to challenge him because there is so much more that is in him and that he wants to do for the team. He’s very hard on himself, but he is the alpha dog leader. I know I’ve stated that term ad nauseum just about but that’s what he is, man. It changes thing. Certain guys bring a spark and it catches with everybody. He’s that guy. On defense, it’s been different guys. You see Tyler Baron, Wesley [Bissainthe] did it, Ahkeem [Mesidor], [Mishael Powell] has done it. He’s a real one man. He’s a stud.”

On the Cam Ward touchdown…

“He’s not one of those ceramic quarterbacks. He doesn’t want to be. He’s a flat-out baller. He wants to play ball. He wanted to come to Miami to win and win a championship and he wanted to improve himself as a player and he is doing all of those things. He has actively and with purpose, has identified those thing and is pursuing betterment in all those areas. That was one of them right there…Great game by him.”

Florida A&M HC James Colzie III Press Conference

On miscues today…

 “Sometimes, the lights are different. They were a little different today. Traveling, big crowd, big-time football game in a big-time spot. We gave up a touchdown on a basic coverage early. Those aren’t coverages we normally blow. With mistakes, you have to take advantage. The University of Miami did a very, very, very good of taking advantage of those mistakes. And then, obviously, [Cam Ward] makes plays. He buys time and when we thought we were doing good stuff, he did a great job. Good football team and [Cam Ward] is a difference maker. …They’ve got a great staff, great football and this is probably going to be a team that does some damage in the playoff run.”

On moving forward and getting better…

“We have to correct. We’ll get back tomorrow and work on our corrections. We’ve got a bye week, so we’ve got some guys that are banged up. If you looked at our lineup today, we probably didn’t travel our best 70. We had about three or four guys that were missing. Whether they made a different or not, I don’t know. We have to get back, take a look, make our corrections, just get healthy and start from scratch, as we get to this bye week. We had some blown coverages on some basic things that we traditionally over the last couple of years have done really, really well with. [Xavier] Restrepo and [Cam] Ward caught us on a mistake. We don’t give up 50-yard touchdown passes with guys wide open. So, again, we’ll get back, we’ll evaluate and correct and put guys in the right spots. We lost to a team that’s probably going to be in the playoff. Is there any humility with that? No, but our team won 13 straight football games, so this isn’t a bunch that is used to losing, especially losing like this, but the guys in the locker room are upbeat and understand the mission to try to get ready for our SWAC run. Did we lose? Yes. Are we happy about it? No. But we have some things to work on and our guys are aware of that, as well as our coaching staff.