Shortly after beating Florida into submission on Saturday, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal met with the press and answered questions and shared his thought on the Canes impressive road against the Gators.
"Obviously a huge game for our program,” said Cristobal. “I thought our guys came out right away and created momentum, seized the momentum. When it seemed like Florida was going to get some of it back, the response was awesome. After the interception, the defense comes on and gets a big stop and forces a field goal. And just felt like every time we had a chance to respond, we did. From a 96 yard drive to converting some really down and distance, some really special guys making some really special plays.”
On the doubters…
"No one ever likes to talk about the starting point. When we got to Miami, there was a lot of work to do. These guys have been though a lot and they made a decision that that's it. They've had enough. They were going to prove that by how they played the game. A lot of fans made their way through here. I know they only gave us 4,000 tickets. I don't know how that's even legal, but I think a lot more of our fans made a way to get into the stadium and made sure they were recognized by our players."
On Cam Ward…
"He's not bad. Special, special guy. All of the stuff you guys were probably wondering during camp, you talk a lot about Cam Ward. Is he really that good? He's just scratching the surface. He wanted to keep playing and playing. Really accurate, improvise, extends plays. Protection was great albeit that one play. He's got a great connection with his receivers. Those guys are really tight. They've repped those plays, they've repped the adjustments to those plays a ton of times. He loves to compete and he sets it off. He's a spark plug. Every team has a spark plug, every team has a spark plug. He and a couple of those other guys, but him particularly was the guy today.”
On the Cam Ward and Xavier Restrepo connection…
"X was always good and now he's taking it to another level. Besides his great hands, you see how he contorts his body to make great catches. He sees what's going on around him too. Almost like a sixth sense. You saw him catch that one ball, put his foot in the ground and go the other way for another dozen yards or so. Two great dudes who enjoy working together and a great start to the season."
On Ward stayed late into the game…
"It's awesome. It's awesome. I hope every player on the field is like that at University of Miami. We're playing Miami football now. We're starting to look like Miami in a lot of different respects. It's interesting, he brought up the team and spoke to them before we left the hotel. You could tell, you could always tell. A certain look in the eye. When you practice that good, you've been prepping that well for such a long period of time, it showed in the practice.”
On the Canes’ trench dominance…
"Minus that one big run (Florida), they were getting off the ball, they were getting hands. Their block destruction really showed up. How we practice showed up. We practice hard. We showed up really well. On the flip side, the quarterback was protected well. I think we finally got to their quarterback and forced one to get intercepted. I thought Meesh [Powell] was gone. What a great play, what a great player. All in all an awesome team effort, things we saw there of course.”
On the injuries…
"We didn't have him (Bain) from the first play. Soft tissue issue. Should be about a week or two. Same with Damari Brown, so we played without two of our best players. Credit to our team. In their mind, it was,' Whatever it takes.' Just keep playing, play the next play. The momentum of the game is going to turn our way if we keep playing…(Ryan Rodriguez) sprained his ankle. He was walking around and looked pretty good so we're optimistic that his injury isn't too bad."
On Cam McCormick…
"He's gone through the other side of the world and back and not the happy and the pretty side. I love that guy. I can't say enough about his contributions and the sacrifice that he's made to be a part of our organization for nine years. Don't laugh. You're all jealous. You all wanted to be in college for nine years too.”
On RB Mark Fletcher being back…
"How about that guy. He look good to you? He looked good to me. That guy is an absolutely tough SOB. A tough, resilient guy and team player.”
On whether the Canes are back…
"As long as you keep winning, right? It's all about the University of Miami. We've been working our butts off. Everybody has. And this one was for the players, the people, all the coaches that work their butts off to make it happen. This is a big rivalry for us. I never got to play in this game. I came as a player to Miami to play in game like this and the last game was played the year before I got here. Miami hasn't been here in 16 years and hasn't won here in 20-plus years. I think this game was big. I think the amount animosity, hatred, bad blood in between the fan bases, you think it amped it up a little bit? It was through the roof, off the charts. Rivalry games, they last for a year. They last for a year and you can't do anything about it until the following year. Certainly when you play an opponent of that caliber, you play against the SEC in one of their stadiums and get a convincing win like that, that's great. The most important thing that we talked about is that for the first time in a long time, Miami has a chance to play a big time game to start the season and now we have to show we can handle that success and go get better. That's really the most important thing. We're in stages, but today was a really big step and I'm beyond proud of those guys for their resilience, their toughness.
“They did it all. They put the work in.”
GO CANES!
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