Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal took some time to speak on local radio station 560 WQAM on the Joe Rose Show With Zach Krantz this morning. He touched on a variety of different topics going into day three of fall camp.

“Well, it’s great to be able to practice and teach several drills. To be able to go ones, twos, and threes and rotate guys in every single unit you know what that generates. It generates competition so that no one gets too comfortable in an essence and it becomes more of a welcomed thing. Guys get on edge and they stay on edge and we need them to play with an edge.”

“It just can’t be any other way. As a player, you remember who you played for, that guy Coach [Don] Shula, it didn’t get any better than that. And great teams do that and great teams welcome that aspect and they don’t see it as a threat and they understand that there is no way to be at your best without that competition. So we are starting to understand that. Today we are in pads so if we want to be a physical team we got to practice and train like a physical team. In a couple hours, here we are going to find out.”

“It really was awesome. The passion is contagious, it’s strong, it’s growing. We got to continue to expand this event and realize you look out there in the morning and you have a line that big and you want to find ways to accommodate everybody. So we are going to make sure that we make it bigger and better and just make it an opportunity to generate a lot of juice and enthusiasm in preparation for the season.”

“Yeah he is. He’s a big powerful guy that can go zero to sixty in a hurry. He’s got great vision, great understanding of the game, and is learning the system right. Your jumping into college ball right away against some pretty good players so it happens really fast. So he’s learning, but credit to the entire backfield. That room and [Coach} Kevin Smith. They are grinding and he is putting it on him. God help you if you are going the wrong way on a particular protection or what not. He understands that protecting the quarterback is just as important as pounding out some yards on the ground.”

“Listen, like you said, injured a year ago, so you got to make sure that you are at your best and your best physical condition to avoid injuries and at the same time making sure that you spread the carries around, the touches, while getting all these guys on special teams. These are explosive fast guys that certainly understand football. And then teaching them leverage, position, numbers, angles, all that stuff is critical for our team to take another step.”

“Well I think the biggest thing is the expectation for everyone to fit under one culture. It doesn’t matter where you come from. Some of the guys I actually played against out there on the west coast and I was at Oregon we played a couple guys at UCLA and came across some other guys in recruiting. So the expectation is, they are older, but it’s still a different culture. It’s a full-throttle culture. It’s a foot on the gas and we don’t come off of it. Two things, number one, them adapting to that, and number two, that making sure as an organization if we want to be a true football family, everybody has to look out for each other and everybody is responsible for upholding the standards of the culture. So a lot goes into it, but it doesn’t matter if you just walked in the door as a walk-on or a returning All-American you're still going to get the same treatment.”

“Looking to challenge this group and challenge them hard, because the great groups do. You know what they do, they stay after it with the quarterback and get some extra reps, they find a way to get on the jug machine. If there is a ball that breaks down, they’re sprinting and they’re blocking. If the ball’s up in the air, they do everything in their power to come down with it. And then off the field, they’re just studying and studying and grinding on that playbook to make sure that the quarterback’s supporting cast is on point a hundred percent. That group will be challenged, there is some progress and we need to see more.”

“We introduced [Cuban] coffee to him I think. He likes it. I got to work on his Spanish accent. The way he says cafecito. Besides all the energy and juice that he brings, he’s brilliant. Super high IQ. Not only strength and conditioning and intelligence but just a great understanding of culture and how it ties into all this grinding, all this work that we do. Truly a guy who’s more than just a colleague, the guy's a great friend and a brother. He’s impact has been felt.”

“I think it’s important. I don’t know enough about retiring numbers. I know that sometimes that’s a tweet out there or what not. We have so many great players over the years you’d have half of your roster you would have to take numbers, but yeah I do believe that. And sometimes some players, former players are a little bit more fresh in our mind because they played more recently. But call it what it is Joe, if you are going to wear that number you better be a dude. You better remind others that watch, fans that watch, family that watch, that whoa, wearing that number reminds me of the guy that used to wear it before. We just want to create high standards and we want to eliminate any type of entitlement. You are not coming in as a fan to watch the game, you are coming in as a student-athlete to contribute to the winning ways of a program that is trying to get back to its championship status. That’s what it comes down to.”

“I think it sets a great foundation. You got to carry it over the summer. We preach four quarters of football and overtime and the entire year has to be approached with the same mentality because let’s call it what it is, if a guy has a great spring and is reading too many articles (I guess they read on the phone, no one reads the paper anymore) but if they are reading too many things and reading too many good things and they come out in the summer and it looks different and they are not giving every ounce of what they have it’s going to end up different for them. So we just want to make sure that there’s a clear understanding that nothing but our very best is going to be good enough."

“You got to stack up. You got to stack up talent. When I mean stack up, we do a really good job of investing in our player’s time, resources and making sure that we that we give them everything we have so they can really maximize their potential and their abilities to create a championship program. You have to bring in multiple classes that are of that caliber. Elite caliber student-athletes with the mentality, the resiliency to withstand the rigors of this process, and also the hunger, the drive, the determination to be just that, elite. We are off to a really good start, the momentum is real. We don’t see it slowing down anytime soon and it's only August so we got to keep rolling. Let’s make sure these aren’t dinner reservations at the local restaurant, let’s make sure they are really commitments.”

“We are placing that challenge on the players and it starts with today. Our meetings start, those guys will be down there with nutrition check-in getting ready before we go into position meetings at 7:30 and then special teams at 8:20, but before that meeting, we’ll have a team meeting so that we all clearly understand if we want to be a physical team, we have to practice like a physical team. And it’s not a pick and choose when you feel like being physical. Your mood has nothing to do with our goals. In terms of setting the tone it has to be shown and demonstrated and it is going to be done on a daily. Every single ounce of film is dissected in front of the team in front of the unit so that everyone really knows who’s real.”

“It’s a continuous example of the commitment of the resources as we are building an entirely new facility. This is part of that and a transition that goes with it. So we know where we are and we are extremely grateful. We’re eating from a nutritional standpoint as good as it gets. We are training as good as it gets. We are surrounding our players with the best of the best and you know what all of the more reason to give that much more, to work out harder, and to make sure that all this stuff that we are doing has meaning and purpose so we have a better product on the field.”