Oregon football promoted Mario Cristobal to be their new head coach. What does that decision mean for the Ducks and the future of their program?
Mario Cristobal was promoted from co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach to the head football coach position of the Oregon Ducks. Cristobal, a native of Miami, FL, is 47 years old and has head coaching experience. He played his collegiate football at the University of Miami from 1989-1992 where he participated on two national championship winning teams in ’89 and ’91 and played in a third title game in 1992.
Cristobal anchored offensive lines with All-American Leon Searcy and his brother Luis Cristobal. He then played two years in the World League before coming back to Coral Gables as a graduate assistant.
After serving as a G.A. at Miami from 1998-2000, Cristobal moved on to Rutgers under Greg Schiano coaching offensive line and tight ends from 2001-2003, before returning to Miami to coach tight ends and offensive line from 2004-2006. He became the head football coach at Florida International University from 2007-2012, when he was fired by Athletic Director Pete Garcia.
His career coaching record is 27-47 while taking on the fledgling Golden Panthers program. FIU did have two good years under Cristobal in 2010 and 2011 where they won 15 combined games. However, he was fired after going 3-9 in 2012.
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Cristobal then joined Al Golden‘s staff for a hot minute before taking a position with the Alabama Crimson Tide to work under Nick Saban. He was the offensive line coach at ‘Bama from 2013-2016 before taking the position on Willie Taggart’s staff at Oregon. Cristobal won Recruiter of the Year in 2015 but I’m not sure how hard it is to recruit to Alabama.
He was the driving force in many pundits’ mind behind the highly rated 2018 class the Ducks were building before Taggart left for FSU. Here are my three takeaways from the Mario Cristobal signing.