How Cristobal’s UM work compares to others in his pay grade. What he must do now
Let’s start here: The Miami Hurricanes will not be firing Mario Cristobal this year, nor should they. Here’s why:
Paying him an estimated $60 million buyout — combined with the tens of millions then needed to pay a new coach — would cripple the program’s budget, when every last nickel is needed to pay players.
And while the Cristobal regime, through 46 games, lands somewhere between a mild and immense disappointment, it has not been a debacle, the type that should leave reasonable people to be frantically scrambling for an off-ramp.
But coaching is a bottom-line business, and here’s the bottom line of the Cristobal era at UM, an era that took another depressing turn with Saturday’s 26-20 overtime loss to SMU that dropped Miami to seventh in the Atlantic Coast Conference at 2-2 and long shots to make the College Football Playoffs:
1). Cristobal has lost as many games as he has won (14 each) in a less-than-grueling conference, with UM entering as the more talented team in most of those losses if you believe the 247/Rivals/On3. com high school recruiting rankings and portal rankings. (The Canes had the ACC’s consensus top recruiting class the last three years and No. 3 portal class nationally this year.)
2). With a salary of $8 million annually in a 10-year contract, Cristobal is underperforming compared to most other coaches in his tax bracket.
Per the USAToday.com database of 2025 coach’s salaries, there are 29 currently employed coaches who are earning at least $7 million per season, excluding James Franklin, Brian Kelly and Billy Napier, who were fired earlier this season by Penn State and LSU and UF, respectively.
If you remove Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman (who doesn’t play in a conference) and North Carolina’s Bill Belichick (the only coach among the 29 who’s in his first season), that leaves 27 coaches. And of those 27, Cristobal’s conference record is the seventh worst.
The six worse than Cristobal: Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (29-67 in the Southeastern Conference), Colorado’s Deion Sanders (9-15 in Big 12), South Carolina’s Shane Beamer (16-23 in SEC), Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell (8-15 in Big 10), Oklahoma’s Brent Venables (15-16 in SEC) and Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith (3-12 in Big 10).
3). Cristobal’s 4-11 UM record in games played Nov. 1 or later is the fourth worst among these 27 coaches, narrowly ahead of Sanders, Fickell and Smith.
But also keep in mind that he had a 16-8 record in November, December and January as coach at Oregon, including two bowl wins. So the “bad late season coach” tag isn’t really fair if you consider the career body of work.
4). Cristobal, the nation’s 17th-highest-paid coach based on annual salary, has underperformed compared to three ACC coaches making far less money. Manny Diaz, fired by UM before Cristobal’s hiring and reportedly making $4 million annually at Duke, is 9-4 in ACC games at Duke after going 16-9 in ACC games at Miami.
SMU’s Rhett Lashlee is 25-4 in ACC games; he was making $2.4 million per year and now will make at least $9 million after the school gave him a new deal last week. Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, earning $5.9 million annually, is 16-5 in the ACC.
Cristobal has better ACC records than FSU’s Mike Norvell (21-25, earning $5.6 million annually) and ACC-leader Virginia’s Tony Elliott (11-17, $4.4 million).
5). UM has lost six games as a double-digit favorite under Cristobal, as ABC and ESPN kept reminding everyone on their scroll all day Saturday.
The program, from a talent perspective, is clearly in a better position than it was when Cristobal took over. But at what point is improved talent not enough? At what point must UM actually make an ACC title game or qualify for the playoffs before this regime is deemed a failure?
We’re not at that point yet. But we’re getting closer, because UM couldn’t make the playoffs with the No. 1 overall draft pick last year (Cam Ward) and likely won’t this year with two projected first-round picks (Rueben Bain, Francis Mauigoa), the nation’s highest paid portal quarterback (Carson Beck) and the third-best 2025 portal haul, per 247 Sports (behind only LSU and Texas Tech).
The Cristobal who appeared on Joe Rose’s show Monday morning sounded very much like the Cristobal after his previous 13 ACC losses:
“We have to coach and execute at a higher level. The best thing you can do is be honest – no excuses, no pulled punches. This is our family, our team and we are the biggest supporters of our players and our team. So back to work.”
There’s nobody who works harder than Cristobal. The issue is not the effort but the approach and the inability to solve recurring problems.
Among the issues that require fresh thoughts from Cristobal, whose team hosts Syracuse on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN):
▪ Rethinking the offensive philosophy: UM’s scoring has shrunk from 42.9 points per game last year to 30.4, which is 43rd in the country.
Now that the Canes have solved their 2024 defensive shortcomings, they can’t score enough points to keep up with many of the best teams in the sport. (Indiana averages 43.1, Texas A&M 37.8.)
Carson Beck’s nine interceptions have been damaging.
But against SMU, statistically one of the nation’s most porous pass defenses, UM threw only four passes of 20 yards or longer but ran 20 times between the tackles even though those specific runs were producing meager results (3.2 per carry).
Why did Cristobal and offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson not settle on a more aggressive approach?
The Canes appear to have vastly overestimated the run-blocking skills of the interior of their offensive line. Miami essentially wants to will a power running game into existence when SMU’s flimsy pass defense suggested a different approach had a greater chance of success.
Shouldn’t Cristobal be telling Dawson to inject more creativity? Dawson had 40 glorious seconds against Louisville (a well-designed 12-yard Malachi Toney TD run and a Toney pass to CJ Daniels on the two-point conversion.)
Aside from that, the playmaking has been largely predictable, devoid of the type of creative wrinkles needed to flummox opposing defenses. How much Cristobal is pushing Dawson to run this grind-it-out-style — and Cristobal’s role in the lack of modern-day offensive ingenuity — is subject to speculation; it’s really impossible to know.
Two weeks ago, we suggested that UM should use Beck in more play action, because he’s simply better on those plays. ESPN’s Roddy Jones made the case again Saturday.
Against SMU, on 27 throws with no play action, Beck threw two picks (one wasn’t his fault) and had a 71.1 passer rating. On 11 throws with play action, he had a 118.4 rating.
For the season, he has six TDs, one pick and a 127.3 rating on 79 passes with play action, and eight TDs, eight interceptions and an 85.9 rating on 162 throws without it.
▪ How to fix penalty problem: It has been a hallmark of the Cristobal regime. The Hurricanes ranked 108th, 80th and 98th in penalties in his first three seasons. They’re 134th of 136 teams this season, at 8.6 per game.
In the game’s first 26 minutes on Saturday, UM was called for eight penalties for 60 yards.
Since nothing else has fixed it, how about briefly benching the most frequent culprits? What Cristobal has tried for 3 ½ years clearly hasn’t worked.
▪ Curtailing the amount of foolish errors: Over the past 22 months, Cristobal hasn’t made any specific in-game errors nearly as egregious as his decision not to take a knee with a lead and under 30 seconds left against Georgia Tech in 2023, though it would be difficult to top that mistake.
But there usually are a fair share of debatable decisions, including calling a timeout just before Marquise Lightfoot was whistled for his damaging late penalty Saturday, and going for the field goal when trailing 42-35 (from the Syracuse 10 and 3:42 left) and hoping to get the ball back when the Hurricanes already had allowed four touchdowns in the second half of last year’s regular-season finale. Predictably, the Orangemen ran out the clock and UM’s playoff hopes died with it.
On Saturday, UM had the ball with 25 seconds left in regulation and one timeout, but Cristobal opted for a kneel down to send the game to overtime. That was questionable, but not egregiously foolish, in our view, because of the limited amount of time left. But it does reflect a general lack of aggressiveness with this regime.
One recurring theme with these losses are mindless mistakes by various culprits. On Saturday, it was veteran receiver/returner Keelan Marion (who should know better) running out of bounds at the 10 instead of letting a kickoff go out of bounds. It was freshman safety Bryce Fitzgerald batting a punt into the end zone instead of downing it.
It was second-year linebacker Marquise Lightfoot somehow not noticing that SMU’s quarterback and Rueben Bain Jr. had pulled up on that crucial fourth-down roughing penalty that prolonged SMU’s drive and set up the game-tying field goal.
Cristobal, to this point, has been far more successful at Oregon (35-13) than Miami (28-18), though he inherited an uninspiring roster from Diaz but has had plenty of time to fix it.
We’re 3 ½ years into his 10-year, $80 million contract, and at some point, Cristobal must start winning November and December in the way he wins the offseason.
This story was originally published November 3, 2025 at 12:42 PM.
