John Lynskey has known Mario Cristobal for about four decades.

They met at Miami Columbus High in the mid-1980s when Lynskey was a first-year history teacher and linebackers coach, and Cristobal was a tall, thin, offensive lineman trying to follow in his older brother’s footsteps.

“I will tell you this about Mario: His intensity burned with the heat of a supernova,” said Lynskey, who is now in his 42nd year at Columbus, an all-boys Catholic school whose recent grads include 2025 Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza.

“One of the most intense, focused individuals I’ve ever seen. I had him in my Vietnam history class, and he took incredible notes — it was like calligraphy or something. He hung on every word. He never lost focus and was very proud of the fact he was a good student. As a person, well-liked. As a player, the defensive guys hated him because he never stopped. There was no half-speed with Mario. The whistle might’ve blown, but Mario didn’t hear it.”

Cristobal’s reputation as a football coach is pretty much the same. There are not many in the sport who are as dedicated to recruiting and roster building. As a former lineman, Cristobal is obsessed with the trench warfare of football, a teacher fully dedicated to the art of winning full-scale brawls at the line of scrimmage.

Does it make him a good head coach?

This is where Cristobal’s critics enter the discussion. They’ll point out he’s lost too many games with a better roster than his opponent. Some say he meddles too much with his offensive coordinators and burns his assistants to the ground on the recruiting trail.

Miami’s infamous late-game meltdown against Georgia Tech in 2023 — when the Hurricanes handed the ball off and fumbled the game away instead of taking a knee to run out the clock — was one of the most egregious coaching blunders in years.

It’s been 4 months and I still can’t believe Mario Cristobal didn’t just take a knee here.

Of course, Miami fumbles it.

And of course, Georgia Tech drives 75 yards for the TD in 2 plays.

This will be studied by CFB historians for decades.pic.twitter.com/Wpc4ttSdmD

— College Football Report (@CFBReport) February 13, 2024

But does that mean Cristobal, 55, can’t redeem himself?

Miami has put together consecutive 10-win seasons for the first time in 22 years, and the No. 10 Hurricanes (10-2) will make their College Football Playoff debut on Saturday at noon (ET) at No. 7 Texas A&M (11-1).

Miami is 4-0 against ranked opponents this season — improving Cristobal’s mark to 5-6 against top-25 teams since he took over for Manny Diaz before the 2022 season. Diaz, though, beat Cristobal to the punch for an ACC championship when he led Duke to the conference crown two weeks ago. A win or two in the Playoff, however, might silence some of Cristobal’s doubters.

“For what this era requires, he is a really good college head coach,” a former college head coach said, “because he has created an environment that has really good institutional support. He has alignment with his president, (and) they evaluate players very well and spend money on the right kids.

“Now, is he a good in-game strategist? No. Shannon Dawson, his OC, is really good. But whenever things don’t go well, Mario’s instinct is to slow it down and run the ball. At times, they let teams hang around with them that shouldn’t be hanging around with them because of it. He’s one of those guys where, if they throw a bad pick, he’s probably telling his OC, ‘I don’t want to throw the ball again.’”

Although his 94 wins rank 15th among active head coaches — one win behind Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck and one win ahead of Louisville’s Jeff Brohm — Cristobal is currently only 16 games above .500 in his career.

Critics don’t point to his 27-47 record in six seasons at FIU, where he took over an 0-12 team in 2007 and four years later led the Panthers to a share of the Sun Belt championship.

Cristobal’s detractors are fueled by what he’s done — or failed to do — with talented teams while the boss at Oregon and Miami. In a combined eight seasons at those two schools, Cristobal is 54-20 while coaching a ranked team, but 11 of those losses — at least one in each of the past eight seasons — have come against unranked opponents.

In 2018, Oregon was blown out on the road at Arizona, which finished 5-7.
In 2019, Oregon’s Rose Bowl-winning squad lost a shot at a spot in the four-team College Football Playoff with a late-November loss at Arizona State. The Jayden Daniels-led Sun Devils finished 8-5.
In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Oregon dropped games to unranked Oregon State and Cal before upsetting USC to win the Pac-12 championship.
In 2021, the Ducks, who went 10-3, lost at unranked Stanford, which finished 3-9.
In 2022, Miami gave up 507 yards in a 45-31 loss at home to Middle Tennessee.
In 2023, the Canes had their epic meltdown against unranked Georgia Tech, which finished 7-6.
In 2024, November losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse (after leading 21-0) kept Miami out of the CFP.
This season, Miami lost to Louisville at home and SMU on the road but managed to sneak into the Playoff after winning its final four games and jumping Notre Dame in the final rankings.

“I coached against him once (when) they had a lot more talent, and we beat ’em,” a former ACC assistant coach said. “I think Cristobal is maybe the best recruiter in college football, but I don’t think he’s a good X’s and O’s coach. He hasn’t played in the ACC championship yet, and they have the highest-paid roster in the conference. There is something missing there.”

Down the stretch this season, the Hurricanes looked like a different team than they did in Dallas when they lost in overtime at SMU. What changed? Cristobal showed his team 15 minutes of highlights from early-season wins to help change the players’ mindset.

“We needed to realize who we were and what we did,” he told Kirk Herbstreit and Joey Galloway on their podcast, “Nonstop with Kirk and Joey,” a few weeks ago. “We took clips of the Notre Dame game, FSU, Florida, when we were just playing at a really high level. Just cut the lights and let it play. No audio, no commentary, just realize who we are. It allowed us to, come game time, be able to cut it loose and have fun. That always worked at Miami. I think it’s taken me a little while to relearn that, because I went away.”

Cristobal’s career as a head coach began in his hometown at age 36 in 2007. His first game at FIU was a 59-0 loss at Penn State. The Panthers avoided back-to-back 0-12 seasons, though, by beating North Texas 38-19 in the final game ever played at the Orange Bowl.

FIU eventually turned things around and went to back-to-back bowl games in 2010 and 2011, but the Panthers took a step back in 2012, finishing 3-9, and Cristobal was fired.

Humbled, Cristobal landed at his alma mater as the associate head coach and tight ends coach under Al Golden. His tenure lasted six weeks before Nick Saban stole him away, naming him assistant head coach, offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator at Alabama. The Crimson Tide signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the 247Sports Composite all four years with Cristobal on staff, part of a seven-year run of recruiting dominance in Tuscaloosa.

Cristobal next made the move to Oregon as Willie Taggart’s offensive line coach in 2017 before being promoted to head coach after Taggart bolted for Florida State. The Ducks’ average recruiting ranking in Cristobal’s four years as head coach was 9.5, compared to 20.8 in the four years prior.

On the field, Oregon went 35-13 under Cristobal, highlighted by a 12-2 record in 2019 that included a Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin. Despite that success, the narrative emerged that he was a great recruiter but an average head coach whose struggles with game management would always hold his team back.

“There’s these games where they’re firing on all cylinders, and they come out and score 40 or 50 points, and Carson Beck is slinging,” the former head coach said. “But then, they get in these games, where if a ball gets tipped or they don’t convert on a third down, or if it gets tight, they start playing tight.

“Mario is an old O-line coach, and most coaches, when the game gets tight, they rely on the part of the game that they’re the expert of. Mario would like to win the game with his O-line and his backs, and they’re really good. He can win 10 games in the ACC just with that, but if they’re gonna win a national championship or beat Texas A&M, you didn’t pay Beck 3 or 4 million bucks to have him turn around and hand the ball off every time.”

While some in the profession question Cristobal’s coaching acumen, there is a history teacher at Columbus High who still very much believes in him.

“Is he a great recruiter? Absolutely, positively, of course he is,” Lynskey said. “That’s ridiculous. Don Shula couldn’t win a big game either. Every coach gets under the microscope at one point or the other. That comes with the territory. Mario accepts that.

“You don’t win a Rose Bowl if you’re a bad coach.”

Bruce Feldman contributed to this story.