Tag: Mario Cristobal

How Marcus Freeman, Brian Kelly and other second-year head coaches graded out in 2023

What grade do you give Marcus Freeman through two seasons?

We’re two full seasons into the Marcus Freeman era at Notre Dame, and there have clearly been some ups and downs.

The era started in a troubling way as the Irish began 0-3, but they’ve gone 19-5 since being upset by Marshall in Week 2 of 2022.

How does Freeman compare to some of the other head coaches that were hired in the 2023 coaching carousel?

CBS Sports graded all of those 2022-23 hires through two seasons into their current stops. How did Freeman compare to the man he replaced at Notre Dame, the man he’ll face in Week 1 of 2024, and some Irish rivals?

Let’s take a look at a handful here:

How Dan Lanning, Mario Cristobal, and other second-year head coaches graded out in 2023

A look at how Dan Lanning, Mario Cristobal, and other second-year head coaches graded out after the 2023 college football season.

At the end of the 2022 season, Oregon Duck fans felt pretty good about their first-year head coach Dan Lanning. He had won 10 games in his first year leading the program and walked away with a victory in the Holiday Bowl over North Carolina to go along with a top-10 ranked recruiting class.

However, losses to both Oregon State and Washington stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a belief that the future should be bright in Eugene, but success against the rivals was going to need to be paramount going forward.

After the 2023 season, I think Duck fans are feeling pretty spectacular about Lanning, now their second-year head coach. A 12-win season landed the Ducks in a New Year’s Six Bowl, and a Heisman-caliber season from QB Bo Nix had the team in the national title conversation all year long. They fell short to a rival — Washington — twice but managed to beat every other team in their path. To add to the good feelings, Lanning punctuated the season with another top-10 recruiting class, and one of the best transfer portal classes in the nation, not to mention his public denial of the Alabama Crimson Tide coaching job, giving Duck fans the one thing they truly desire more than almost anything else: Loyalty.

So while Oregon feels good about their head coach, how is he being publicly? As they do every year, CBS Sports broke down the second-year head coaches and offered a grade for their tenures so far. More than just Lanning, let’s take a look at the grades and analysis for other notable figures like Mario Cristobal, Lincoln Riley, Joe Moorhead, and a few others.

Former Oregon tight end granted a ninth season of eligibility

Former Duck tight end Cam McCormick was granted his ninth year of eligibility from the NCAA.

Former Oregon Duck tight end and Bend native asked for and was granted one more year of eligibility from the NCAA.

It would be his ninth season.

McCormick has had more than his share of injury problems and coupled with the 2020 pandemic, this might be the one and only time you’ll see an athlete play this long on the collegiate level.

He has suffered numerous leg injuries and in his five years in Eugene, including a redshirt season, McCormick played in 23 games for the Ducks, good for 169 yards and four touchdowns.

After his time with Oregon, McCormick decided to follow his former coach Mario Cristobal to Miami where he played in all 13 games for the Hurricanes. He caught eight passes for 63 yards in 2023.

How Dan Lanning’s first two years compare to other Oregon Ducks head coaches

A look at how Oregon Ducks’ head coach Dan Lanning’s resume through two years stacks up against past coaches in Eugene.

The second year of Dan Lanning’s tenure as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks has come to a close. He wrapped up his second year in emphatic fashion with a 45-6 win over the Liberty Flames in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Monday. With the win, Oregon improved to 12-2 on the season, and Lanning picked up the second bowl game victory of his career.

While it’s impossible to perfectly compare coaches throughout the years because of the constantly changing landscape in the world of college football, what we’ve seen from Lanning so far has been impressive, to say the least, and has him up there with some of the best coaches that Oregon has seen over the last several decades.

Now that we have a two-year sample size to go off of, this felt like a great time to see how Lanning’s accolades from the past two years stack up compared to other coaches of the modern era who have come through the Ducks’ program, potentially look at what it might portend for the future.

Mario Cristobal is no longer at Oregon, but he is still out-recruiting USC

Mario Cristobal is still doing it on the trail, though he has money and resources in Miami.

USC’s recruiting woes are detailed in a recent report from 247Sports which looked at blue-chip signees for the 2024 cycle. Blue-chip prospects are defined as four- and five-star recruits, anyone higher than a three-star player.

We already noted that Oregon and its current coach, Dan Lanning, have nine more blue-chippers than USC, 17 to 8.

Miami and Mario Cristobal have seven more blue-chippers than USC. The Hurricanes have pulled in 15 blue-chip players thus far, according to 247.

Mario Cristobal outrecruited USC when he was at Oregon, but that could easily be connected to the fact that Clay Helton was coaching at USC and dragging down the Trojans’ overall recruiting numbers. The fact that Cristobal has seven more blue-chippers than Lincoln Riley as of Christmas Day in the 2024 recruiting cycle is a sign that whatever USC is doing in the NIL space, it isn’t nearly enough. Miami has some elite money-men who can hand out a big bag to recruits. USC lacks that firepower right now, and it’s something the Trojans have to address in the near future.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

Mario Cristobal has respect for Rutgers football head coach Greg Schiano

Mario Cristobal is grateful for the role Greg Schiano played in his career.

The relationship between Rutgers football head coach Greg Schiano and Miami head coach Mario Cristobal goes deeper than just the usual connections through coaching circles.

There is a bond and a brotherhood between the two that is very much apparent. It is beyond the usual coach-speak and professional respect found between two opposing coaches.

And with Miami facing Rutgers in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at the end of December, Schiano and Cristobal will face each other. Prior to taking over Rutgers in 2001, Schiano was the defensive coordinator at Miami.

That’s where he first met Cristobal, who was then a graduate assistant.

“I actually had the honor of picking him up at the airport when he was interviewing to be a defensive coordinator at Miami,” Cristobal said last week in a conference call with the media.

“Instantly he was the hardest worker in the building. It’s someone I patterned my habits after. Someone that was a rising star in the profession. When he got this opportunity at Rutgers, he afforded me the opportunity which was a tremendous blessing and honor.”

The graduate assistant made such an impression that Schiano asked him to join his staff at Rutgers.

[lawrence-related id=32848,32836]

Cristobal would spend three years at Rutgers, the last in 2003 as their offensive line coach. From there, he would go back to Miami and by 2007, he was named the head coach at FIU.

The lessons learned at Rutgers from Schiano played a part in developing and guiding Cristobal through head coaching stops at FIU, Oregon and now at Miami.

“Always found a way to teach. When you’re a head coach, you’re really, really busy, you sometimes forget one of your major obligations is to develop the people under you. He always just found a way to push and challenge me, to help me develop. Never held back. I appreciated that,” Cristobal said.

“I was a south Florida kid. To be up in the Northeast and away, that was new, that was different for me. Whether it be my family visiting, my brother coming into town, he was just always really gracious. My mom, may she rest in peace, always, always would ask and appreciate coach Schiano for everything that he always did for myself and the way he treated my family.

“Consummate professional, unbelievable grinder, teacher, whatnot. I could go on and on and on. Certainly someone who I’ll forever be indebted to for just about everything career-wise and beyond.”

6 potential transfer portal destinations for former Oregon QB Ty Thompson

Here are six possible destinations for former Oregon Ducks’ QB Ty Thompson to transfer to after leaving Eugene.

You have to hand it to Ty Thompson. He could have transferred out of the Oregon football program many times, but he chose to get better, choosing loyalty and hard work over instant opportunity.

Thompson, a 6-foot-4, 220-pounder from Mesquite, Arizona, was the highest-rated quarterback to sign with the Ducks in 2021. He was passed over a couple of times in favor of more veteran quarterbacks, but he chose to stay in Eugene and continue to compete for a starting spot.

[lawrence-related id=54021]

He showed remarkable improvement this season under offensive coordinator Will Stein and showed he could be a viable college quarterback.

[lawrence-related id=54086]

With Bo Nix leaving after this season, 2024 seemed to be Thompson’s true chance to win the QB1 job. That hope was crushed when Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel announced he would transfer to Oregon. Understandably, that was the last straw for Thompson, who announced his transfer on Sunday morning.

Going forward, Thompson will be an attractive option on the open market, with two years of eligibility remaining as former five-star player. Here are some potential destinations for Thompson to start immediately and get his college career rolling.

For Greg Schiano, the Pinstripe Bowl puts Rutgers up against a familiar program

Rutgers football head coach Greg Schiano remembers Mario Cristobal’s time on his staff.

Rutges football head coach Greg Schiano and Miami head coach Mario Cristobal each have deep, intimate ties with the opponent programs they will be facing in three weeks in the Pinstripe Bowl. It is a relationship that might for one day in late December at Yankee Stadium be adversarial, but it is a relationship that has been built on mutual respect and mentorship.

Schiano burst onto the national scene as a head coaching candidate in the late 1990s when he was the defensive coordinator at Miami. He took the clout from being on staff for one of college football’s all-time great dynasties into becoming head coach at Rutgers.

Now in his second stint at Rutgers, time has not erased the memory of the place etched into the annals of college football simply as ‘The U.’

When he came to Rutgers for his first stint as head coach, the program was in shambles and there was talk of the Scarlet Knights dropping down to the 1-AA level so as to be competitive. But Schiano took the lessons from several of the coaches he worked with and turned Rutgers into a program that consistently made bowl games.

Not unlike what he has done this season at Rutgers (6-6, 3-5 Big Ten).

“Well, it was a great time in my career as a young coach. I got the opportunity to be a defensive coordinator, I think I was maybe 31 years old,” Schiano told reporters on Sunday night.

“So Butch Davis gave me a great opportunity, and I learned so much from him. He gave me the opportunity not only to coordinate the defense, but he really helped me learn what being a head coach was about and the different things you had to do. Some by observation, and some he forced me into it and included me in it.

“I’ll always remember that as a special place, and it wasn’t long. It was two years. But it was really helpful for me in my development, and I have a lot of close friends still there.”

Rutgers has not played Miami since 2003 when the Hurricanes left the Big East to join the ACC.

[lawrence-related id=32608,32586]

One of those faces that Schiano met down at Miami was the aforementioned Cristobal, now the head coach of the Hurricanes. And while Cristobal has taken several stops along the way before returning back to Miami, one of the first stops in his coaching ladder was at…Rutgers.

And with Schiano no less.

“I met Mario at Miami. He with as a graduate assistant on that staff, and he had played there. Was part of those national championship teams,” Schiano said.

“When we came to Rutgers, he came with us and came with us as our tight end coach initially and then took over the offensive line, and has just done unbelievable things. But I knew that. I knew that when I saw him as a GA that he was going to be head coach and a really good head coach.

“Very proud of him and we have stayed in touch throughout all the years, so you know, when we play, it will be competition, right? But other than that, utmost respect and love for the guy.”

Cristobal returned to Miami in 2004 following his three seasons at Rutgers. He would go on to become a head coach at FIU and spent time on staff at Alabama and Oregon before becoming Oregon’s head coach in 2018.

[lawrence-related id=32604,32566]

He is now in his second season as head coach at his alma mater.

Last year, Miami finished 5-7 but Cristobal has managed to flip that record this year and had the Hurricanes ranked in preseason.

FIU is no slouch even if this season hadn’t gone off rails

Florida International isn’t good, but is capable of upsetting Arkansas if it doesn’t take the Panthers seriously.

Florida International and Arkansas have met one time previously on the gridiron, back in 2007 as the Razorbacks were in the middle of a tumultuous season that ended in Houston Nutt’s exodus after a 8-4 season.

The Panthers (4-6) have struggled in Conference USA this season and are currently in dead last after starting the season 3-1.

Second-year coach Mike MacIntyre, formerly of Colorado and San Jose State, is in his second year at the helm of the Panthers, who hail from Miami.

The program started in 2002 and they were in the Sun Belt until 2013 when they joined Conference USA.

Current Miami coach Mario Cristobal spent six seasons as the head coach from 2007-12. He was hired the year after the infamous brawl with the Hurricanes happened.

Former Miami coach and Springdale native Butch Davis was the coach there from 2017 to 2021, making three bowl games in a row at one point.

Mario Cristobal shares high praise for Clemson’s ‘bullies’ at running back

Miami’s head coach praised Clemson’s running backs heading into a huge Week 8 matchup.

Heading into their Week 8 ACC matchup against Clemson, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal shared high praise for Clemson’s roster stacked with talent, including their “bullies” at running back. 

Monday, Cristobal met with the media to discuss the Hurricanes’ upcoming matchup against Clemson. Following back-to-back ACC losses, Miami faces a tough test as the Tigers travel to town. During the media session, Cristobal spoke about Clemson’s stacked roster and the running backs that make it all happen on offense. 

“Fast, powerful, right? Guys are bullies, right?”, said Cristobal. “They do a great job. They do a great job up front. So do their tight ends. Schematically, they present a lot of eye wash, a lot of challenges; they’re physical, physical football team. Those are a lot of stacked classes of high-caliber talent, you know, coming together, and they do a really, really good job, you know? They’re a couple plays away from being 6-0, you know? So, they present a lot of challenges, and again, we are looking forward to being at our best on Saturday.”

Clemson’s running game is the offense’s focal point, and the Hurricanes head coach knows it. It will be interesting to see how they attempt to slow down the one-two punch of Will Shipley and Phil Mafah.

Clemson will face Miami this Saturday, Oct. 21, with kick-off at 8 p.m. ET on ACC Network.