Posts Tagged ‘Mario Cristobal’
Non-B.C.S. Teams Get Into the Recruiting Act
By Paul Myerberg // Feb 2, 2012
You won’t find the highest-ranked non-B.C.S. conference signing class anywhere on the list of this year’s top 50 classes, according to Rivals.com. But you will find a pair of programs, Utah and T.C.U., who have clearly benefited from their new conference affiliation. The Utes’ class came in just outside the top 25, thanks in large part to an eight-man offensive line haul that help should keep Jordan Wynn clean and Kyle Whittingham happy in 2012. The Horned Frogs continued to make hay in Texas, sweeping up a number of second-level recruits that may flown in under the radar, while adding a quartet of recruits from SEC country. How would Utah and T.C.U. have done on the recruiting trail had each remained part of the non-B.C.S. conference landscape? Not as well, one would think.
Tags: Arkansas State, Boise State, Dennis Franchione, Deontay Greenberry, Florida International, Fresno State, Gus Malzahn, Houston, Mario Cristobal, Nick Patti, Recruiting, Temple, Texas State, Tim DeRuyter, Toledo
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Kyle Flood Lands a Promotion at Rutgers
By Paul Myerberg // Jan 31, 2012
Kyle Flood’s coaching career can be summed up in three words: Gardi, Keeler and Schiano. Those are names, actually, with Gardi the former coach at Hofstra, Keeler the current coach at Delaware and Schiano, of course, the head coach at Rutgers from 2001 through last Friday. His connection with each coach spans back to 1997, when he joined Gardi as Hofstra’s offensive line coach, but Flood’s coaching career spans back to 1993, when months after graduating from Iona he took a position coaching both lines at St. Francis Prep in Lafayette, N.J. — Flood’s alma mater, as well as a school famous for producing Vince Lombardi, among other notables.
Tags: Greg Schiano, K.C. Keeler, Kyle Flood, Mario Cristobal, Rutgers
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Unexpectedly, Cristobal Isn’t Rutgers-Bound
By Paul Myerberg // Jan 30, 2012
How is it possible that two sides so clearly destined for each other couldn’t hold hands and cross the threshold? It wasn’t about the relationship: Rutgers knew Mario Cristobal and Cristobal knew Rutgers, thanks to his three-year stint as a Greg Schiano assistant. It wasn’t about ability: Cristobal can coach, as he proved over five years at Florida International, and replacing Schiano at Rutgers would clearly mark a step up the coaching ladder. It wasn’t about a better option on the horizon — for Rutgers, at least: If not Cristobal, the Scarlet Knights would turn their sights inward toward interim head coach Kyle Flood. No, it wasn’t about relationships, it wasn’t about ability and it wasn’t about a better option. So what prevented Rutgers and Cristobal from walking down the aisle?
Tags: Florida International, Greg Schiano, Kyle Flood, Mario Cristobal, Rutgers
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The Official End of an Era in the Big East
By Paul Myerberg // Jan 26, 2012
Miami (Fla.) and Virginia Tech left for the A.C.C. in 2004, followed a year later by Boston College. Rutgers broke through in 2006, bolting out of the gate with nine straight wins and rising as high as No. 7 in The Associated Press poll before splitting its last four games to finish 11-2. Coincidence? Not quite. Perhaps no program – and no coach, Greg Schiano – benefitted more from that trio’s bolt to greener pastures, one that created a power vacuum atop the Big East. Rutgers, along with West Virginia and Cincinnati, helped fill that gap. But the Scarlet Knights never got over the hump, instead making brief bursts towards B.C.S. play before ceding Big East supremacy to other more solidly-built conference rivals.
Tags: Big East, Greg Schiano, Mario Cristobal, Rutgers
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The Year in Review: F.I.U. (8-5, 5-3)
By Paul Myerberg // Jan 4, 2012
To understand where Florida International stood upon Mario Cristobal’s arrival in 2007, it’s probably useful to read the following paragraph from the great Bruce Feldman, way back when he was doing his thing at ESPN, not CBS:
When Cristobal got the job, F.I.U. was winless… The program was in complete disarray when he arrived. I have been down to visit F.I.U. before Cristobal arrived and after. There was no weight room, no meeting rooms, no film setup. It was unlike any Division I program I’d ever seen…. Many of the players had to work out on a Bowflex machine in some makeshift room. Players often had to sit on the floor of coaches’ offices for position meetings.
It’s through the prism of then-and-now, from nothing to something, that we need to judge Florida International’s 2011 season. Disappointing today? The Golden Panthers, the presumptive Sun Belt favorites, lost to Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State and Western Kentucky en route to a fourth-place finish in the final conference standings. Disappointing when compared to where this program was in 2007? F.I.U. has gone from Bowflex to bowl play. Not disappointing: amazing.
Tags: Arkansas State, Florida International, Jordan Hunt, Louisiana-Lafayette, Mario Cristobal, Sun Belt, T.Y. Hilton, Western Kentucky
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F.I.U. Looks to Back Up Its Bowl Bluster
By Paul Myerberg // Dec 20, 2011
Florida International athletic director Pete Garcia took a page out of the big boy’s playbook in convincing the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl committee to select his Golden Panthers, the fourth-place team in the Sun Belt, ahead of Western Kentucky. It helped that both the Big East and Conference USA failed to meet their bowl allotments: with neither conference able to send a team down to St. Petersburg, the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl opted for F.I.U. and Garcia; the latter had feverishly worked the phones, beginning as early as the first week in November, in an effort to sway the bowl’s selection protocol.
Tags: Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, Doc Holliday, Florida International, Mario Cristobal, Marshall, Pete Garcia, Sun Belt, T.Y. Hilton, Vinny Curry
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Forecasting the Sun Belt in 2011
By Paul Myerberg // Jun 23, 2011
Troy owns the Sun Belt more than any other F.B.S. program, B.C.S. or otherwise, owns its respective conference. We’re in the middle of five straight tied or outright conference championships, which places Troy in a very elite historical group of programs with such a successful run — I smell a 100-word preview question, by the way. The Sun Belt will continue to belong to the Trojans in 2011, in my mind, but Florida International presents the greatest challenge yet seen to Troy’s run of dominance. The Golden Panthers are full of confidence after last year’s bowl run, and might be even better with another year of experience. Then there’s Middle Tennessee State, which made a change at both coordinator spots in an effort to avoid another disappointing season.
Tags: Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Jonathan Massaquoi, Larry Blakeney, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Mario Cristobal, Middle Tennessee State, North Texas, T.Y. Hilton, Troy, Western Kentucky
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No. 70: Florida International
By Paul Myerberg // Jun 22, 2011
It was a season of firsts. First non-losing season. First winning season. First year scoring more than 300 points. First year scoring more points than the opposition while on the F.B.S. level. First year with more than three wins in conference play. First winning record during conference play. First conference championship. First bowl game. First bowl win. First year worth writing home about. First, first, first, first. Next up: first year with sizable expectations. As Florida International will soon discover, it’s one thing to do it once; it’s another thing to do it again.
Tags: Florida International, Geoff Collins, Jonathan Cyprien, Mario Cristobal, Sun Belt, T.Y. Hilton, Todd Orlando, Tourek Williams, Wesley Carroll
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