CORAL GABLES, Fla. – It’s finally game week for the University of Miami.
The Canes kick off their schedule on Saturday at home against Bethune-Cookman.
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This also marks the beginning of the Mario Cristobal era as head coach.
Cristobal won two national championships as a Hurricanes player.
As you might imagine, Coach Cristobal has been hit up for tickets from plenty of friends and family.
Cristobal said Monday, “I mean you’re killing me right now. I’m going to get another 200 requests when this question comes out. Yeah, they did. I gave them the front office number so they could call and purchase them except for a couple of family members of course.”
The Canes have had a long offseason of implementing Cristobal’s system.
Miami let go of former head coach Manny Diaz after last season.
Cristobal said, “We’ve worked it enough, we’ve preached it enough, now it’s got to show. I feel confident with the steps that we’ve taken and the way that we’ve actually... we’ve created situations where adversity hits them and they have to respond with a good competitive response. We feel that the progress shown in practice, should show up on gameday.”
Cristobal said there’s still competition left to decided who starts and that most of that is on the defensive side of the ball.
On offense, the Canes are led by quarterback Tyler Van Dyke.
He was the ACC Rookie of the Year last season and is on several preseason watch lists this year.