Miami Football Preview 2025: Can Mario Cristobal’s Hurricanes Win Everything?

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Can Mario Cristobal finally become a College Football Playoff head coach?

Everyone likes to dog the coaches who “can’t win the big one” - James Franklin has, ridiculously, been a regular in that discussion. Even more insane is that Ryan Day is, in some circles, still in that mix when it comes to Michigan. But to get to the “big one,” you have to beat everyone else.

In 13 full seasons as a head coach at FIU, Oregon, and Miami, Cristobal has been underappreciated as a builder of programs.

It’s lost in history, but Oregon went 11-14 before Cristobal turned everything back around. The Ducks went 35-12 with two Pac-12 Championships and another appearance in his four seasons. But there was always the one strange loss that messed everything up.

In 2021, it was to a 3-9 Stanford. In 2019, it was against a mediocre Arizona State. In 2018, it was at Arizona.

And now at Miami, he’s done a wonderful job of recruiting and developing talent. It took two seasons to push past the mediocrity and into a 2024 season that should’ve finished with an ACC Championship and a spot in the College Football Playoff, but …

Syracuse 42, Miami 38. And just like that, it was all gone.

Cam Ward pulled a few games out of the fire, the Hurricanes caught a whopper of a break to survive Virginia Tech, and they finished the season No. 1 in total and scoring offense, but it wasn’t enough thanks to that date in Syracuse.

This year’s team might be too good to let that happen again.

The talent level remains as strong as any in the ACC, the depth is strong, and Cristobal has the program humming. This is when the payoff should be coming, but the Hurricanes need to be amazing again on …

Miami Offense Breakdown
Miami Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season