Mario Cristobal has successfully re-established the Miami Hurricanes as a leading power in college football, and he was clearly very motivated to do it.
Cristobal surprised many four years ago by walking away from Oregon to return to his alma mater. He admitted this week that he simply became sick of Miami being a punching bag after 20 years of struggles, and wanted to do something about it.
“I’ve had 20 years of sitting from afar watching Miami get ridiculed and stomped on. It pissed me off,” Cristobal told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. “I got to the f—ing point where I couldn’t stand the s— going on here and the amount of s— being thrown at it. My brother told me, ‘If you don’t f—ing do it, who the f— is going to do it?!'”
Cristobal played for Miami from 1989 to 1992 and won two national titles. The Hurricanes remained successful for about a decade after he left, but then fell on hard times. They went ten years without winning a bowl game between 2006 and 2016, and had just one 10-win season between 2003 and 2024.
Cristobal was open about his desire to make Miami elite again. He has done so, and took plenty of risks in doing so. The easy thing to do would have been to stay at Oregon, where he went 35-13 over four seasons. He made the bold choice to leave, and now he has the Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff final.
