Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal answered questions on local radio 560 WQAM this morning on the Joe Rose Show With Zach Krantz. Cristobal is moving on from the 17-9 loss to Texas A&M and is preparing for the fourth game of this season hosting Middle Tennessee State this Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium.

"The things that showed up in a positive way, like you mentioned, we competed. Our work on being physical and being tough showed up, but what obviously got us is our trips to the red zone weren't as productive as they needed to be. We handled the environment well, but certainly discipline showed up in the form of a couple of penalties down there that put us behind the sticks. Had a turnover, a critical one that led to their seven points. Just all in all detail and discipline, it doesn’t match the stat line when it comes to playing a team like that with good players they are going to make you pay and they certainly did. We take that as a team obviously from the coaches all the way down to the players and bottom line is we have to practice better and harder and eliminate all that stuff."

"He threw the ball 41 times. I thought we protected him well for the most part, didn’t have any sacks. Had five quarterback hits, which is far too many. We had I think six or seven drops. Had some really good passes. I got to continue to create opportunities and things schematically to enhance our passing game which we are always working on. We had our opportunities, we didn’t capitalize on them."

"What can you say about it? It’s not good, and you look at the reasons why, a miss here and a miss there, and it's something when you watch on tape you got to eliminate any sensitivity in the room. We go right at it. There are no sacred cows. There’s got to be accountability across the board. Just playing tough on the road against a good opponent, that’s not going to win you any games going forward. You got to correct those things and get better at them and they’re all…The positive is that there’s competition. There’s a willingness to throw it around and be physical, but the things that show up, that disparity in those statistics and yet not coming up with touchdowns, is a testament that everything in practice has to be more sharp, has to be more detailed because those are conversions that we had been good at making and we didn’t make it happen, and most of the time it was us. It was Miami beating Miami. That’s a product of all of us and obviously we take ownership starting with myself. We are upset. We were disappointed and we are ready to get back to work."

"What’s obvious is that room has a ways to go. Xavier Restrepo is far and above the leader or the alpha in that room and everything from him as a punt returner, and a receiver, is missed tremendously and the bottom line is he’s not going to be back for a while. So guys have to step up. We’re going to put pressure in that room. There is no drama, no BS about it. Bottom line is you got to produce. You got to run the right routes. You got to catch the football. You got to block when you are called upon and you got to work at it. You got to work hard at it. They know that. I think they’re trying. We certainly got a lot of work to do and a ways to go."

"There’s no drama brother. You can’t negotiate your way into playing time. You got to prove it. Game time is not an experiment. It’s time to play the guys that showed in practice that can do it, and then it's got to carry over to the game. It’s got to show up on tape. It’s got to show up under the lights when the ball is placed on the tee and kicked off so it’s very cut and dry and the bottom line is teams that practice really hard are typically the really really good teams. We are working our way there but there’s no fingers to point, no blame to throw around but there’s absolutely no drama to be had. We know we have to get to work. We know that we’ve been a work in progress and that we are rebuilding a football team and we feel like we are going to be a good football team. That’s it. It’s as simple as that."

"They were physical. The o-line and the d-line, they came to play. Both sides of the ball. Defensive line was disruptive. The only time that we had plays where they had positive plays is when we jumped out of our gaps trying to make a play. Which you can’t. That’s a discipline issue, but got after their quarterback I believe we hit him 12 times, sacked him three times. We didn’t get our quarterback sacked. He got hit five times but the truth of the matter is we can do better. We had a penalty here and there that hurt us. The tears in the lockeroom, that’s got to be real and show up on Tuesday and Wednesday. It hurts man. It hurts like crazy because we invest time and these dudes work hard and now that stuff that pain its got to show up on Tuesday and Wednesday. Let’s not fluff it up, let’s not BS ourselves about it. Let’s just go get better."

"Obviously, it was a poor decision by him, but you got to keep playing the game man. The best ones have football amnesia. You got to put it behind ya and go. It’s a lesson learned. It’s something that shouldn’t have happened, but it did. And when it does, there’s still a way to get it back. I think as a team, as a program you just got to understand that you just keep playing the game because football is still about the next play. You finish that one to the best of your ability then you got to go onto the next one. Don’t let one play that’s negative turn into a series or a quarter that’s bad. You get behind your guys, you support them. He’s a really good player. He’s done a lot of good stuff. Consequences came with that lesson, that’s the part that stinks, but ultimately he’s a guy that we believe in and trust in and we’ll learn from it and get better."

"We had two possessions down eight points and weren’t able to convert them. We were talking with the team, they ain’t trying to drop the ball. We had seven drops, so obviously we ain’t there yet and that’s not just the receiver position. We’re working at it. You get behind your guys. But I’m going to be really pissed if we’re not trying to catch a hundred balls each after every practice. Does that make sense? Those tears got to be real and you have to work it into existence and work it into reality because routine plays have to be converted and you got to be able to make progress on it and if you don’t, you got to do it until you can’t get it wrong. There’s no fluffing, there ain’t no excuses. There’s no nothing, you just got to get back to work and get it right."

"It’s as clear as the day is long. The bottom line is you got to be able to be trusted. I got to be able to trust you to go to class, I got to be able to trust you to take care of your business outside of the building. I got to trust you to take care of your business during practice, because at the end of the day, you got to be on the bus and perform. You got to be on the plane to be able to go play. All those things are taken to account top to bottom and we put a lot of responsibility and accountability on these guys. It’s a game of accountability. There’s no fuzziness or cloudiness about what the expectations are and that’s on every side, coaches too. We got to keep working at…if something, if we’re dropping a ball or if we’re not manufacturing touchdowns in a certain way or stopping them in a certain way. We got to keep manufacturing ways to have more success. Whatever it takes. Whatever schematic adjustment we got to make, we got to do."

"Great player. There’s a guy you can trust. Very accountable. He’s always giving everything he has."

"They certainly increased their role on Saturday. Elijah Arroyo had a big catch as well. We had them on that one wheel route. We got to do a better job of taking the top off of the coverage. If that X or the Z is running his post, he’s got to grab that corner to create a little room for him. Corner falls off of that and is able to put the ball at the last second, Elijah goes in for a big play. But overall yeah we got to hit those guys. I believe we threw the ball 41 times and they certainly were a big part of it."

"We expect to go practice full throttle and see exactly what that competitive response is because we do have players that are fighting for playing time. Some have shown themselves in a positive way, some have shown deficiencies. It’s okay, we work at those deficiencies as long as guys are willing to work, eliminate drama and negativity, and go at it and treat football the way it’s supposed to be treated and practice the way it’s supposed to practice, we’re going to do well. I think we have ton of that on the team and we got to make sure we maximize it."