Annual CaneSport State of The U series kicks off: Everyone wants a quick fix, but thorough eval of program shows headwinds Mario Cristobal faces

CaneSport has been producing its State of The U series for many years now. That State has never really been very good, the result of a Miami program obviously in a worse state of disrepair before Mario Cristobal arrived than even we realized and imagined.

Substandard resources and funding. Substandard management from the top of the athletic organization on down. Horrendous talent evaluation. Lazy recruiting. A broken-down culture. You name it, it was right there to be seen no matter how uncomfortable the subject might have been along the way.

To give the Miami Hurricanes football program a chance to be fixed, it was going to take something seismic, which Cristobal has been and has delivered upon in his time back home. The road from A to Z was going to be paved with wreckage, and it certainly has been in the form of stunning personnel upheaval in both the coaching and personnel departments. More than half the coaching staff was purged after year one. Thirty-nine players have departed since Cristobal arrived.

As part of the new beginning, a University that had always lived on the cheap was going to have to be induced to spend money like it never had before unless it was buying a hospital. That U Health hospital and medical operation – now a clear brilliant move by former University president Donna Shalala – was going to have to be used to fund football and athletics in general, something that previously had been unheard of at the University.

One budget line the University was going to have to increase first was its investment in a proven CEO, thus the effort to go get Cristobal at an $8 million annual salary.

It was going to have to commit to a $200 million new football complex to bring Miami up to speed with the powerhouses of college football. Shovels will be in the ground soon.

And that was just going to have to be a simple beginning.

Staffing levels were going to have to be doubled. The people who were hired were going to have to be willing to work harder every single day of their life than they ever imagined was possible.

They were going to have to do this under the rule of an obsessed head coach that was going to make them feel uncomfortable at times with his demands, his passion, his work ethic and his single-minded mission to restore a football program that had given him life and meant as much to him as anything in the world.

And the State of the U was so bad in December 2021 that all of this was going to have to happen without the slightest bit of instant gratification.

A seven, eight, nine or more win season this year will be seen as advancement that can be a launching pad for more recruiting. By 2024, Miami hopes to be a legit contender for the 12-team expanded college football playoff. By 2025, it hopes to be good enough to compete for it all.

CaneSport publisher Gary Ferman

Imagine this.

You work this hard with all of the anger that comes with working this hard as you sacrifice everything in your life for the common good, and then you win five games and lose to Middle Tennessee State and get blown out by Florida State. Trust me, you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror and you find out if you are weak or you are strong. The weak are gone.

All of this took place before you could even begin a conversation about a roster that was so inadequate that the 2022 Miami Hurricanes could not even compete with anybody that was any good at all despite a massive injection of players from the transfer portal. They lost to Middle Tennessee State. Enough said.

There was a horrible culture problem that had to be transformed at many layers, which isn’t easy when you have a lot of one-year loaners on the roster.

The Miami Hurricanes football program that Cristobal inherited was such a mess that he really had no chance on the surface to emerge from year one unscathed himself. Hate on him for his errors if you wish, but the weight of the transformation was too enormous even for him.

Cristobal had to take a few bullets on his hiring mistakes, like offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, and move quickly toward Year Two, a No. 6 recruiting class and a second transfer haul providing significant rocket fuel toward the impending September arrival of the 2023 Miami Hurricanes.

So here we are 19 months into the Cristobal era at Miami and for the next couple weeks CaneSport will once again be analyzing the State of The U. We will take a look at the five recruiting classes that will make up this year’s team. We will analyze whether there is a possible quick fix in 2023. We will take a look at where Miami stands in the college football landscape. We will identify the biggest on-field question. We will break down the personnel at every position. And then we will tie it all together with a final analysis.

The coach is still standing strong. People inside the building are feeling better about the progress that they are witnessing. And a new football season is set to begin with a massively improved roster than the one that took the field a year ago.

Is the State of The U great? No, we will not call it “great.” Miami is projected to win seven or eight games this year and again be an afterthought in the ACC. Its best player, Tyler Van Dyke, has fallen off the radar when people talk about the best players in the ACC and around the country. There is enormous amounts of work left to be done. There is a hope that “great” will be on the horizon.

Van Dyke is looking to regain the magic that made him ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2021 (© Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)

But the State of The U today is considerably better than it was a year ago even if the advancement can’t yet be touched or felt. The curve is moving in the right direction. There is a tangible blueprint. There has been sequential progress.

The hiring of Cristobal was a leap forward for the University after the debacle of the process that resulted in Manny Diaz being hired. This time around UM went for the coach with a more proven resume who commanded a top salary based on his success at Oregon. In the past, Miami had typically taken the cheapest path.

That was the first domino that had to fall so that it could lead to other pillars of progress essential to building a successful program.

The degree of University spending that has transpired would not have taken place had Diaz remained coach because Diaz would not have been able to inspire John Ruiz, the Mas brothers, the University and everyone else who has contributed to the spending escalation the past 18 months to put up the level of money that they have. If he could have, he would have.

The personnel is better. Miami had the No. 6 recruiting class in the nation last year and has added several key 2023 pieces in the transfer portal like center Matt Lee, guard Javion Cohen, running back Ajay Allen, receiver Tyler Harrell, tight end Cam McCormick, linebacker Francisco Mauigoa, cornerbacks Jaden Davis and Davonte Brown, and defensive tackle Branson Deen. Combine that with carryover starters in defensive end Akheem Mesidor, running back Henry Parrish and receiver Colbie Young and you have half a starting lineup to show from two transfer portal classes.

The culture, the mindset and accountability that everybody in the organization brings to work every day, is getting better.

After the recent changes, the coaching appears to be getting better.

The daily processes that are followed have become well-established.

Leadership within the program is improving.

There will be some who are not happy with that potential timeline, who thought hiring Cristobal, spending all the money, would be an immediate fix. But history has shown us that it is virtually impossible to just snap your fingers and have a championship program. Rebuilds at Miami under Howard Schnellenberger and Butch Davis were essentially five-year processes. There really are not many shortcuts, though the transfer portal does offer some opportunities to shrink the timeline if it is used wisely.

The bottom line is that The State of the U right now is in the eyes of the beholder, an evolving masterpiece of the imagination with no guaranteed or right or wrong ending. Our hope through this series that begins today is that we provide the foundation to dream.

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