Mario Cristobal is not getting fired. Not this year.
Probably not next year or the year after that. Not after being targeted as the man who can elevate the University of Miami athletic department profile as its football coach and handing him a 10-year, $80-million contract in 2022 — a commitment that balloons to about $120 million when adding in his $9 million buyout paid to Oregon, coaches salaries and other improvements.
Now, it is fair to start that conversation? Absolutely.
Is it fair to say his first four years have been a disappointment? Absolutely.
And is it fair to wonder after seeing schools paying multi-millions in buyouts to dump coaches, some with far better winning percentages than Cristobal’s .609 at Miami? Absolutely.
It’s also fair to say there has been progress under Cristobal, whose buyout this season is reported to be around $60 million.
But after a four-year start that included two embarrassing seasons he justified by blaming everyone else, and now two years of mid-to-late season meltdowns against inferior opponents with a generational quarterback last year and a team considered one of the most talented in country this season … that progress is easy to overlook and question.
What we have seen from Cristobal so far is exactly what so many at Oregon and around the college football world warned Miami was getting when university CEO and now president Joe Echevarria and vice president Rudy Fernandez opened the vault to bring the Miamian and former Hurricanes offensive lineman home.
Cristobal has done nothing to change the narrative on his career … a supreme recruiter who levels the playing field with his coaching shortcomings when it comes to strategy, in-game management and undisciplined teams.
Cristobal is 12-10 against unranked opponents; 14-14 in the ACC, the weakest of the power conferences; 4-11 in November and December; and has six losses as double-digit favorite, the most in the country, since he arrived at Miami.
“Cristobal can’t get it done,” CBS college football analyst Brian Jones said following Miami’s 26-20 loss at SMU on Nov. 1.
“He’s not the answer.”
That loss to SMU dropped Miami to 6-2, 2-2 in the ACC, a conference that will need a lot of help just to get two teams into the College Football Playoff.
Miami Hurricanes good bet to miss 12-team playoff again
Barring a lot of things breaking its way, Miami will not be playing in the ACC title game (for the 21st time in 22 years as a conference member) and enter 2026 still seeking its first ACC championship.
And Miami’s chance to make the 12-team playoff sits at 10 to 15 percent.
The Hurricanes have lost five of their last 12 games, four of those in the regular season in which they were double-digit favorites in each.
The irony of the loss at SMU is Cristobal always will be best remembered for one of the biggest coaching blunders in football history. Two years ago, instead of taking a knee and running out the clock against Georgia Tech, he ran ball. That turned into a fumble, recovered by Georgia Tech, which then completed two passes in the final seconds to win the game.
Against SMU, Cristobal had quarterback Carson Beck — one of the highest paid players in college football with a reported NIL valuation of $4.3 million — take a knee on the 25 yard line with 25 seconds remaining in regulation and one timeout in his pocket.
Cristobal did not trust turnover-prone Beck to get the 35 or 40 yards needed to give kicker Carter Davis a chance to win the game. Davis is 3-for-4 in field goals of 50 yards or longer in his career, including a 53-yarder this year.
Instead, Miami had Beck throw the ball in overtime after four running plays got the ball to the SMU 7. Beck’s last pass was intercepted, his second of the game, and SMU ran six straight times for the winning touchdown.
“The defense quit in overtime,” CBS analyst Aaron Taylor said. “And that to me is as big an indictment as the results of the game.”
James Franklin was fired at Penn State for less
Coaches have been fired for less this year.
Penn State’s James Franklin won 34 games the last three years and last year played in the Big Ten title game (losing to Oregon) and CFP (losing to Notre Dame in the semifinal). He was paid $49 million to go away after a 3-5 start this year.
Franklin’s sin was not being able to win the big games. Yet, in the last three years, Franklin was 31-0 in the regular season against every team not named Ohio State or Michigan.
In other words, during that stretch he did not lose to teams like Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Louisville and SMU as a double-digit favorite, as Miami has the last two years.
Brian Kelly had a .708 winning percentage at LSU before he was bought out for $53.8 million.
Miami AD Dan Radakovich will not be the one determining Cristobal’s future. That is coming from Echevarria, Fernandez and Manny Kadre, the chairperson of the UM Board of Trustees.
Given Cristobal’s salary, and the resources the school has committed to the program, even if this year ends as expected with Miami in another bowl named after a breakfast pastry, a lawnmower or a cloud storage company, he will back.
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Hurricanes’ Mario Cristobal is not going anywhere, but should be be fired? | D’Angelo
Reporting by Tom D’Angelo, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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