Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal Not Playing for 'Beauty Pageant Points'
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The current talks surrounding No. 13 Miami (9-2, 5-2 ACC) are centered on whether they have enough style points to get in the favor of the College Football Playoff Committee.
Head coach Mario Cristobal has this in the back of his mind, as they could have easily kneeled on the ball and ended the game in the red zone in their victory against Virginia Tech, but a 17-point win looks better than a 10-point win against a team that has only one three-game win all season.
However, for Cristobal, it is not about the style points. He is just coaching his team to play football for the full 60 minutes.
"Our expectation during the game is every time we have the ball, we want to score, and we are going to score," Cristobal said on The Joe Rose Show on Monday morning. "Every time we are on defense, we are going to get a stop. That doesn't change. Our level of game control throughout this year is really high. n a game where you only have eight possessions, and you score six times…imagine that is a game in which you have a normal 12 possessions, and that is in the 50 point range.
"We went out and controlled everything from the beginning until the end. Football is a game that is played on the field. It is not a beauty pageant. The more advocates that are out there for the game being played and settled on the field, especially now that we are playing some of our best football. All of us played the game and coached the game for results on the field. Not for beauty pageant points."
Superstar wide receiver Malachi Toney has had his black eye mark before every game, "GABOS". It stands for "game ain't based on sympathy". This is the message that Mario Cristobal is preaching, and the Hurricanes are living by it.
The Canes only have a 31 percent chance of making the dance, and each day the odds are starting to look worse. The best chance they have at the moment is reaching the ACC Championship game and hoping to secure an automatic bid as the conference champions.
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.