COACH… “Every week is playoff football.”

September 17, 2026 -

Miami head coach Mario Cristobal appeared on his weekly video podcast on Wednesday. He shared his perspective on the team’s win against FAMU, the defensive secondary and how the culture now projects the Miami standard.

On the win over FAMU:

“Guys came out, played hard, took care of business. A lot of guys got reps, and all focus on Wake Forest.”

On playing to the Miami standard:

“I think that the energy was right. Certainly some things that we worked on showed up in a positive way, and then a lot of other things showed up that we have to work on. So all in all, a day at the football office, right? Things that were positive, things that we need to work on, back to work.”

On the new defensive secondary:

“Solid first day together, right, with that new group out there in that particular rotation, and then played a bunch of other guys that are certainly going to earn themselves more playing time in the coming games. So all in all, positive progress and more progress to be made.”

On the team’s chemistry:

“You know, I think the front line guys now recognize the amount of pride taken, and when you have an opportunity to play to the highest level and put your team in a position where others can get a chance to play, it's extremely rewarding. Those guys spend the same amount of hours around us. They put in the same amount of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears into it, and to actually give them the opportunity to set foot on the field in a game, live action, that's priceless, invaluable, and certainly some memories those guys will cherish forever.”

“…Yeah, so I think it spoke highly of the camaraderie of the team, how our team is becoming more and more galvanized. Nobody took off any shoulder pads. No one was mailed it in. Everybody was still engaged, and they were coaching and cheering on the other guys and getting legitimately excited that those guys were competing and executing some really good stuff. So all in all, just a very positive experience.”

On never being satisfied:

“Without a doubt. I mean, this is college football. Every week is playoff football. You know, there's no waiting for the playoffs to begin in December. It's now, right? Every game has that much value attached to it. So the more that you can understand that and have your team gain maturity as it develops, those are the things that are really critical to your team continuing to get better, because you have to get better as the year goes on, right? You have to develop the guys that maybe haven't played as much because you're going to sustain issues, right, in terms of injuries or whatnot, and you better be able to put the right guys on the field that can perform at a high level. So maturity, that's a big one, big word.”

“Yeah, the entire organization has to understand that, and if players and coaches don't understand that, they got to go somewhere else, just being honest with you, because that's just the way things are. That's the reality of the matter. And we only have these guys for four hours a day, and every second of those four hours has to be intentional. You got to have purpose behind it, because if you're not at the top of your game, as you probably saw this past weekend, you can take one on the chin, right? And who knows what that can cost you down the line. And you don't need to learn hard lessons that you can avoid by just keeping a very high standard and eliminating complacency.”

GO CANES!