Coach Mario Cristobal and the Hurricanes got a taste of the Sun Belt’s excellent Saturday stretch when Southern Miss stuck with Miami longer than expected. Their opponent this week, Texas A&M, caught the full brunt when Appalachian State upset the Aggies at home.
“I don’t think you can be surprised by that anymore,” Cristobal said on “The Joe Rose Show” Monday morning on WQAM. “Everybody has good players, and if you think, as a coach or a player, that you have the best players— you’re out of your mind and you’re fixing to get beat.”
Miami struggled early against Southern Miss, falling behind in the first half and only going ahead 10-7 at halftime. The Hurricanes made adjustments at halftime and put up 27 unanswered points from their late first-half touchdown through the end of the game.
Halfway across the country at Kyle Field, Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M could not adjust to the Mountaineers, and they were held to just seven offensive points (the Aggies also scored on a kickoff return in the 17-14 loss). Appalachian State allowed Texas A&M to accrue only 186 offensive yards on just 38 offensive plays.
“You’ve got to buckle up every single Saturday, because it’s coming, man,” Cristobal said. “Everybody has good players, and if you’re off and you get exposed and another team gains the momentum — in college football, momentum is the hardest thing to get and the hardest thing to keep, so make sure you’re on point every single Saturday.”
The Hurricanes enter their first Power 5 matchup of the season ranked ahead of the Aggies. Miami was ranked 13th in this week’s Associated Press poll, while the Aggies are ranked 24th. Still, Texas A&M is a 5.5-point favorite this week, according to DraftKings.
“It’s still got to be a matter of us focusing on us,” Cristobal said. “You study your opponent, you watch two plays and you immediately recognize they’re as talented or more talented as any team in the country. They’re extremely explosive, physical, massive in the interior offensive and defensive lines. They’re an excellent football team, and it’s the same team that beat Alabama less than a year ago.
“Again, our team, this is a game that we all recognize the opportunity to go on the road against a top 10 football team, and all we’re focused on right now is making sure that we take care of today and do our best today to prepare for this football team.”
Miami will Iikely play in front of its largest crowd of the season on Saturday. Texas A&M’s Kyle Field seats more than 102,000 people, and Cristobal said it’s “as loud or the loudest place to play” in the nation.
Despite the loss, Texas A&M is also a deep, talented team that brought in one of the best-rated recruiting classes in history last season.
“They’ve got tremendous talent across the board, right?” Cristobal said. “Their running back runs 10.1 100-meter, their receiver is a 10.5 guy, I believe ... Those are documented times.”
But the Aggies’ loss against a Group of Five team shows they’re fallible, and the Hurricanes will spend the next several days looking to improve after two victories and finding where they can attack Texas A&M.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for [Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher],” Cristobal said Saturday. “They are a very talented football team. Most importantly, we need to go back and assess our film. Where are our holes? Where could we have been better today? Where can we firm up the things that we can be better at so we can operate at a high level in a very hostile environment, as we know, against a really talented football team.”
