Mario Cristobal Sings Praises of Defensive Coordinator Corey Hetherman
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Was Lance Guidry a scapegoat for the defensive struggles last season? Yes and no, but the Miami Hurricanes and Mario Cristobal don't care about the why. College football is a results-based business, and something had to be done after wasting one of the best offenses seen this quarter-century.
Cristobal wanted results, and he looked toward the Big 10, to a Minnesota team that had quickly turned into one of the best defenses in the country in a one-year swing, thanks to defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman.
Hetherman is now representing the orange and green thanks to some convincing from Cristobal, and now the Hurricanes head coach is singing the praises of what he has already done so far for the retooled defense heading into the 2025 season.
"He is an elite coach, individual, and teacher," Cristobal said during an appearance on The Joe Rose Show on 560 WQAM on Thursday morning. "That is the most valuable thing when it comes to coaching. A guy has to be able to teach and connect. Every single day, he finds a way to make those guys better so that their buy-in is really, really high. You see it in the way we communicate and the way we run to the football. We are not all the way yet, but it is exciting to watch that defense progress."
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Communication was the biggest issue from last season's defense. Blow coverage after coverage cost the Hurricanes many games and it forced Cam Ward to play two-on-one most games.
This season, the coaching has been simplified, allowing players to play freely and understand that everything should be as simple as possible.
"Coaching in soundbites and not dissertations," Cristobal said. "If you have to talk a bunch, then you are going to confuse somebody because we are talking about snap judgments and decisions throughout the course of a game. He makes it simple and digestible for our guys and complicated for the other team. He is a conceptual and progressive teacher, like Shannon Dawson. They teach in progression and teach concepts, so you can almost overlay it to different formations or different sets."
That will be tested in the most important game of the season for the Hurricanes on opening night against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish August 31.
Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University and is the site lead for the Miami Hurricanes on SI. He can be reached at Twitter @Justice_News5.
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.