Why did Phil Steele name Miami among his list of "surprise teams" in the 2024 College Football magazine?
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00:00I've spent the last three days combing through 350 plus pages of Phil Steele's College Football
00:08Magazine. It's like a Bible. It's very long, and I'm only really scratching the surface.
00:16We talked earlier this week about him having Miami in his top 10, about Phil Steele having
00:22a conference leading seven Miami Hurricanes as first team All-ACC players, more than any
00:28other team in the conference. So Phil Steele, he's bullish on Miami, and he has Miami rated
00:34as his number five surprise team in the country this year. Now, full disclosure,
00:38he actually ranks both Florida State and Clemson above Miami as possible surprises
00:43for different reasons, even though he thinks Miami could potentially win the conference.
00:48But here's what Phil Steele says about Miami as his number one surprise team.
00:53Miami is known for underachieving, he says, and have not finished in the top 10 since 2003.
01:00Cristobal brings in quarterback Cam Ward, running back Damian Martinez, and a slew of top-notch
01:06portal players to go along with his solid freshman recruiting classes. While he is not,
01:11while he is just 12 and 13 in his first two years in Miami, here Miami is in all eight of my top
01:20unit rankings, he says. They do not face any top 15 teams on the road and face just my number 43
01:28strength of schedule. Cristobal was an assistant at Alabama for four years and was in two national
01:34title games there. At Oregon, he was a dog in both Pac-12 title games, but won both convincingly,
01:40so he can be very effective in the postseason. Now, I think, you know, he reminds you of a
01:46couple of important things there. We stressed this earlier this week. Strength of schedule is
01:51important, right? Miami, Miami has a relatively easier schedule than they had a year ago.
01:56Number 43 strength of schedule, they were number 16 according to Phil Steele the year prior.
02:02So the schedule is a little bit easier. The team obviously looks better than what it looked like
02:08last year. But he also, he also makes an interesting point about Cristobal because
02:14obviously there, there are narratives about Miami's head coach that he's not going to be
02:19able to shake some of these narratives until he wins something at Miami. Whether that something is
02:26an ACC championship or a national championship, he's not going to shake the narratives until he
02:31wins something down here. But Steele brings up some interesting points because yeah, people love
02:36the narrative that Mario Cristobal can only recruit, but he cannot actually coach. And I've
02:43seen a lot, I see a lot of people saying, well, this guy's never going to win anything because he
02:48cannot coach. You see that narrative out there, but the facts are he won two Pac-12 championships,
02:55two Pac-12 titles. That's not nothing. He had the Oregon ducks rolling. So, you know, this there,
03:01and I'm not saying some of the criticism isn't warranted, should have taken the knee. Of course,
03:07at times should have made better use of his timeouts. There are definitely things
03:11you can micromanage and criticize about Mario Cristobal as a game day coach. But when I see
03:16people saying this guy can never win the ACC or can never win a natty two Pac-12 titles in the
03:24Pac-12, by the way, the reason why they don't exist anymore is not because it was a bad conference. It
03:29was a conference with terrible leadership. They had some really good teams in the Pac-12. He won
03:34two titles there. That's not nothing. So, you know, this narrative that the guy cannot coach
03:38and he cannot win anything, he has won before. And listen, I obviously we would all love to win
03:44national championships again at Miami, but winning a couple of conference championships,
03:49those are nice steps in that direction. I would absolutely take that down here.