The Resurgence of Miami Hurricanes Recruiting Under Mario Cristobal

On October 15th, 2021, Hurricanes football legend Alonzo Highsmith went on the Orange Bowl Boys Podcast to talk about the current state of Miami Hurricanes Football. As he reflected on the program, he was asked how he viewed the current talent on the roster compared to the rest of the ACC. His response? “Miami is a middle-of-the-pack ACC team”. To hear those words coming from a talent evaluator that was the Senior personnel executive and VP of player personnel at the NFL level was deflating. Miami was not as talented as we all thought they were.

The question is what happened? How had Miami fallen to the level of basketball schools such as Duke, Georgia Tech, or Louisville? Over twenty years of misalignment from the President, Athletic Director, and Head Coach on down, hesitancy to not invest in the program, and unsuccessful coaching hires all led to a perfect storm where Miami’s recruiting fell off the map. It was talent acquisition or a lack thereof, that doomed Miami to fluctuate in the 6-6 through 8-4 record range in the past two decades.

Enter the Mario Cristobal era, Miami is now aligned from President to Athletic Director and Head Coach. There is a considerable financial investment being made on the part of the university, and LifeWallet is the gold standard for NIL platforms everywhere. That is why despite a rocky 5-7 season, Cristobal was able to secure a top-10 recruiting class. The importance of this cannot be understated. Miami went head-to-head with multiple “blue-blood” college football programs for elite recruits and won battles for players they wanted. Let’s take a look for example how Miami fared vs. Nick Saban during the 2023 recruiting cycle:

Miami and Alabama went head-to-head for Francis Mauigoa, Riley Williams, Jayden Wayne, Olaus Alinen, Malik Bryant, Samson Okunlola, Rueben Bain, Cormani McClain, Damari Brown, and Keon Keeley. This of course is not a comprehensive list of every recruiting battle Miami and ‘Bama went head-to-head for in this cycle, as some of those battles never saw the light of day in the public eye. The point is that Miami went toe-to-toe with Alabama for guys that were top targets on Miami’s board and went 7-2 versus ‘Bama after Cormani McClain recently decommitted from Miami and committed to Colorado . After years of watching talents like Jerry Jeudy, Devonta Smith, Jacorey Brooks, Christian Leary, Patrick Surtain Jr., Jordan Battle, Braylen Ingraham, Dallas Turner, Josh Jobe, Evan Neal, and a slew of other elite-level talents donning the Crimson Tide colors, the days of Nick Saban coming into Miami’s back yard and cherry-picking whomever they wanted, are long gone.

Miami will go toe-to-toe and win its fair share of recruiting battles and if it continues to stack elite classes ranked within the top-10, the talent level will not look like a middle-of-the-pack ACC school, instead, it will look like Miami should have appeared on the field to its fans expectations all of these passing years. A superpower that is on its way to competing for National Championships once again.