‘An opportunity to upgrade’: Cristobal looking to upgrade Hurricanes as ‘wild west’ of a postseason begins

The Hurricanes ended the regular season 7-5, and coach Mario Cristobal said he and his staff are working to upgrade the roster during this offseason.

After ending the regular season with a rout over Boston College, the Hurricanes are waiting to find out their postseason berth. They will find out their bowl position on Sunday and will play the final game of the 2023 campaign in several weeks, but UM coach Mario Cristobal and his staff are still hard at work.

Miami is working to continue improving its 2024 recruiting class, which is currently ranked 11th in the nation. Additionally, the next transfer window opens on Dec. 4, and the Hurricanes are expected to be active again.

“Five years ago, I changed my perspective on all that stuff and just figured, ‘Look, any defection that you create or that happens to catches you by surprise, it’s an opportunity to upgrade,'” Cristobal said during his Monday morning interview on WQAM’s Joe Rose Show. “So you keep a three-dep at every possible slot for players, for coaches, for analysts, you just keep that handy and you just keep going. It’s exciting. You have an opportunity to get better everywhere.”

“We need another 30-plus guys of the mold of Rueben Bain, of a Mark Fletcher, of Damari Brown,” he added. “Another really, really good young class and some portal guys.”

The first step of being active in the portal is figuring out where your own roster stands. Cristobal said he is in the process of meeting with players this week.

“Time to figure out who to keep, who to help, who’s staying, who’s going,” Cristobal said. “Just being as professional as possible, do what’s absolutely best for the program.”

Although the Hurricanes finished the season 7-5, Cristobal thinks Miami will continue to be an attractive destination to players in the portal.

“We’re working our way to becoming a really good team,” Cristobal said. “This is a young team with a lot of juice. Improvement across the board, systems really starting to come on. It’s an exciting time. It’s going to attract some really, really good players and some good coaches.”

Cristobal said the NCAA is strict about tampering with players on other rosters, but if a player is getting ready to enter the transfer portal, he and his staff need to be ready to move quickly. Players in the portal often make their decisions in short periods of time.

“You better be in position if there is word out there that a guy is going to move here or there,” Cristobal said. “As you meet with your guys, too, you’ve got to be straight up and realistic, no matter how it comes, no matter which way that meeting goes because you need to be ready to upgrade right away, whether it’s coming from the outside or we’re making a move from the inside.”

Miami players might not be the only ones leaving Coral Gables. First-year defensive coordinator Lance Guidry has some whispers around him and whether he might depart after helping turn around the Hurricanes’ defense this season.

“I’m always going to help coaches garner attention and do things for their careers,” Cristobal said when asked about Guidry. “The guys that are here now are happy. I’m sure at some point in time, everybody’s got to make a decision throughout the course of the year, but you don’t go into this thing hoping and wishing and worrying. Can’t do that, man. Have a great list of people. There are some real ones here, there are some real ones out there. Just make sure you get the right ones and this building, we have flooded it with awesome people and we need to get a bunch more.”

This Hurricanes team will play together one last time next month. It will be the first bowl game UM has participated in since 2020. Miami has lost its last four bowl games and is 1-10 in bowl games dating back to 2008. That is a record Cristobal wants to start correcting.

“We need to make sure there’s no complacency. For example, that the bowl game, the postseason becomes a serious thing for Miami. Let’s call it what it is: There’s been an arrogant approach to the postseason and late-season games unless you’re playing for it all. That can’t happen here.”