Mario Cristobal Reacts to Miami's Victory over Central Michigan

Of course, appreciate you being here. And the first shout out goes to the fans. I mean, what a turnout and what amazing energy they brought. Our players, they felt it big time. I hope they had a great time. They certainly looked like they had a great time. And we want to provide that for our community, our fans, and our family. It's great. And also, it was a great team, the 91 team. I was a member of that team, and those memories are off the charts and really one of the main reasons why. But that being said, after that first drive by Central Michigan, and credit to them, first and foremost, they were very well coached, tough players. But after that first drive, we got our cleats in the ground. The offense scored on its next six possessions. It really created separation there. The 65, whatever it was, but the penalties certainly were an issue and something that we have to work on and improve. We were getting some guys in there on the offensive line. I don't know if you guys saw that. A couple guys were held. More precautionary and a little bit banged up. Making sure that they were, again, always following medical procedures. A seven-minute mark in the third of our front line. At this stage of the season. I mean, you never know what you need, right? It's a little bit of both. You want to play football. You don't want to get, believe it or not, a little play count that can create a rush, which you don't want. But you do want guys to gain experience because that's the best thing for a football team. First, just a running back room with obviously no ground for team members. Mark, on playing nights, how did you feel that group did as a whole tonight? I think all those guys ran hard. Certainly, we picked some things up up front. They put us, albeit that first draft, a little bit down. We didn't have the same issues on third down that we had. A much better job. But I thought Jordan, again, back in there, taking some of the rust off. Mark is healthy and ready to go. He was banged up to the point where it may not have been the best choice to put him in, especially with his running. He's excited. When a returner was forced back, you didn't get any of the personality to start seeing your defense start generating that aspect. Yeah. Unfortunately, we had a touchdown callback. It was a great play, great sack, great student score. I mean, yeah, we swarmed the ball. Sometimes, from this tackle to the fact that we really like to sell out. If you leverage the ball correctly, we're going to help this sometimes. We're going to have some of those. But I felt we swarmed better. I felt that we tackled better. I know Coach Hudson. You touched on the rotation on the offensive line. What did you see through those guys tonight? What did you like? What did you not like? I mean, we'll see on film. I mean, it's always hard to tell out here. But you saw the guys that have been starting and the guys that didn't. You saw guys who stayed involved. So much of this game is the simplicity, right? So it's a huge point of emphasis. I think, again, certain guys and, for the most part, the entire unit. I'm talking about tight ends and receivers. We all are getting better. We did have some holding calls tonight. A couple of them down the field, which we've got to clean that up. You know, we've got to do a better job coaching it. We've got to do a better job running our feet through contact, keeping our hands inside, and less guilty of it. And then I know you mentioned Mark. You guys do the same as Drew would. We got a little banged up early, lower body stuff. You know, all tests were negative. Good for us, so he's going to be okay. Ahmad. Ahmad did get a little bit nicked up last week, and we felt his process was getting him ready to roll. He's such a physical player. He's right there. He's ready to roll. I don't see any limitations on him. Coach, you mentioned the penalties earlier for them within the offensive line. Just how – or some of the challenges that maybe led to some of those stumbles. I wouldn't call them stumbles. I'd call them more aggressive than anything else because they are, like, down the field blocks. You guys trying to get a piece of somebody else. We have to be a little bit more sensible to pass interference, kind of criticize the officials. I didn't agree with it because I didn't see a push-off, but it's still called. So there is no – this is not a court case. There is no jury about it. There's one. There's a dictator, and that's the guy that's throwing the yellow hankies. And so if it's there, if it's called, it's something that we have to work on, and we can't rationalize it. We have to clean it up and just air-tighten technique and fundamentals. But I didn't see a lot of aggressive play that ended up in penalties. We hadn't had that in the first three games when it showed up tonight. So I don't – Just to follow up real quick on Ben, how has he impressed you behind the scenes in getting that trust to get some reps with the main squad? You're talking about Ben? Condon. Ben and Jamal both tonight got reps with the ones. They were alternating every other series. I thought S.J., Max, Ben, and Jamal, at least out there, just seeing it with the naked eye, it was a lot of – created a lot of movement up front, created some vertical push and finished blocks. So those guys, I mean, the entire organization, if someone's on the field, they have earned a form of trust. So credit to them for working hard and finding a way to earn the trust. Darian, again, just another amazing night and on target. And it really doesn't – I mean, it doesn't matter who he's throwing to. He seems to have a great connection with anyone that's out there catching the football. Yeah, he spread the ball around pretty good as well. He extended plays, great pocket presence, protected pretty well. But a couple of times when it got sticky, he found a way to know what he was going to shoot tonight in an awesome manner, especially right before that. That's a pretty extensive drive. And he's so – him and the entire office have been so good at two-minute practice sessions throughout the course of the early season that we had a lot of confidence. Yeah, you know, a lot of arguments this week about who the best team in Miami is. As the years go by, they get bigger than King Kong and Godzilla, man. Those guys just grow and grow and the legends grow. They practice harder than anybody at Batemore Tackle. But you know what they are? They're my brothers. And that's the magic of football, and especially at the university. I never could have imagined coming in. And that hits you hard now because we are as different and from as different parts of the country as you can imagine. Ethnicity, skin color, languages, hairstyles. And man, just absolute brothers for life. Appreciate you guys. Good night, guys. Thank you, Coach. Thanks, Coach.