Cristobal swaps turnover chain for lecture, uses ‘teaching moment’ to keep molding culture
There was no turnover chain waiting for Kamren Kinchens after he extended for a diving interception Saturday, only a scolding from his coach waiting for the safety when he got back to the sideline in the first quarter of the Miami Hurricanes’ 70-13 rout of the FCS Bethune-Cookman Wildcats in Miami Gardens.
On the same bench where so many Hurricanes previously stood to fire up the Hard Rock Stadium crowd and don the once-iconic chain, Kinchens instead sat with the rest of his defensive teammates while Mario Cristobal crouched down in front of them and yelled. After his interception, Kinchens spiked the ball and a flag flew for a 15-yard unsportsmanlikeconduct penalty. The coach pointed and commanded they clean it up.
“You’ve got to knock that out. Rules are rules. We don’t play football on our own terms. We play it on football rules’ terms,” Cristobal said. “We’ve got to feel and conduct ourselves in a manner where we’re used to doing that, where we expect to do that and now you know what we need to do? We need to go and get our teammates and the rest of that stadium rocking and fired up.
“It’s all about the teaching moments. That’s what we’re here for.”
The days of the turnover chain are long gone. The age of Cristobal is here. It’s different and Miami believes it’s going to be better.
In Game 1, the Hurricanes put together a performance to match the best early-season feats of
the most-recent regimes, complete with the takeaways Miami made into an identity when former coach Manny Diaz was at the helm.
Although they gave up 342 total yards and 6.1 yards per play, the Hurricanes erased most of their mistakes with three interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown, and a flag flew for only the first one.
On the second, redshirt junior Gilbert Frierson snatched a deflected pass out of the air and rumbled into the end zone for a touchdown, dancing in front of the crowd with his teammates. On the third, star sophomore James Williams lined up almost as an outside linebacker and jumped a short pass for a pick.
“In practice, we see the
same thing,” said defensive lineman Akheem Mesidor, who deflected the pass leading to Frierson’s interception.
Mesidor also notched one of Miami’s two sacks, and the Hurricanes added a blocked field goal on special teams. Even though it was just Bethune-Cookman, it was a promising performance for this new-look defense, led by new defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, and it got it done without the enticement of a chain waiting in a box on the bench.
Ultimately, the chain — or the lack of one — means only so much, but its absence is part of the larger cultural shift Cristobal is trying to implement in Coral Gables.
This is now the Miami that’s “back to work,” as
Cristobal often says, rather than simply back. Even though he played and coached for the Hurricanes during the glory days of over-the-top celebrating, Cristobal was never about the mayhem and he wants to instill his workmanlike attitude on the entire program.
At the very top of the roster, players are buying in. Tyler Van Dyke, when asked to assess what needs to improve after a season-opening rout, said, “We just celebrated too much.”
“I was talking to Coach Cristobal about it and you know how he is. He doesn’t really like that extra celebrating, so I think we just have to dial it down a little bit,” the quarterback said and then echoed his coach even more clearly. “We have to
eliminate that.”
Cristobal’s animated moment was still on the mind of the defense after the game, too. When a reporter brought the scene up to Frierson, the defensive back smiled a wide smile and started to laugh.
His new coach has still been in South Florida for fewer than nine months and a full culture shift can happen only so quickly. It’s still a work in progress and the Hurricanes made some in Week 1.
“We never stop chopping,” Frierson said. “We keep going, keep going, keep going; keep pounding, pounding, pounding.”