FSU football: Is Miami getting desperate going into 2023 season?
By Kelvin Hunt
FSU football has beaten the Miami Hurricanes in back-to-back years, including the worst home loss in Miami history at Doak South last season in Mario Cristobal’s first year as head coach.
Cristobal was the supposed savior of Miami football, a former player coming home to try and rebuild a program that’s been mediocre for nearly a quarter of a century.
Cristobal got billed as a elite recruiter and did his best to take advantage of the new car smell new head coaches enjoy, coupled with a vocal booster with grand plans to bring Miami back to prominence.
However, a 5-7 campaign in his first season, including blowout losses against Middle Tennessee State, FSU football, Duke, Clemson, and Pittsburgh, took the shine off real quick. He had to fire his offensive coordinator, and a has-been defensive coordinator left the program, forcing him to replace both coordinators after his first year.
His problem? No proven coaches wanted to go work for Cristobal. That translated into recruiting. The cracks in recruiting started forming towards the end of last year for those paying attention.
They lost blue-chip QB Jaden Rashada and five-star defensive back Cormani McClain towards the end of the recruiting cycle. I noted Miami didn’t have the juice they had last year in May way before most realized it, even Miami fans:
A dude that literally has Lifewallet in his Twitter Bio talking that 3-star commit Miami took yesterday committed to them over FSU, Nebraska and others....lololol....them boyz desperate.
— Kelvin Hunt (@khchopchat) May 28, 2023
That first part of that tweet brings me to where I we are now.