Hurricanes’ Mario Cristobal ready to square off with mentor Greg Schiano in Pinstripe Bowl
Former Miami Hurricanes coach Butch Davis assigned then-graduate assistant Mario Cristobal a task one day in 1999: Go pick up new potential defensive coordinator Greg Schiano from the airport before his interview.
Schiano nailed the interview and spent two years on staff with the Hurricanes. When Rutgers hired Schiano as its head coach in 2001, he brought Cristobal to New Jersey with him as the offensive tackle and tight ends coach.
“Instantly, he was the hardest worker in the building, so it was someone I patterned my habits after, someone that you knew was a rising star in the profession,” Cristobal said Tuesday. “When he got his opportunity at Rutgers, he afforded me the opportunity — which was a tremendous blessing and honor.”
Cristobal and Schiano’s paths have not crossed often on the field. Cristobal’s FIU teams played Schiano’s Rutgers in 2009 and 2010 (Schiano won both games). They will face each other for the first time in 13 years later this month when the Hurricanes (7-5) play the Scarlet Knights (6-6) and Schiano, in his second stint as Rutgers coach, in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28.
“With Coach Schiano, he gave me my start,” Cristobal said. “Forever grateful to him. He’s the best mentor I’ve had in this business and always a great friend. I know on game day we’ll be trying to knock each other out, but aside from that, certainly him and his family, from the moment I got in the coaching industry, he was the reason why it was able to actually happen.”
The relationship is not one-sided. Schiano credited Cristobal as one of the few people he trusts. He also said he learned a lot from Davis in his two seasons at UM.
“I knew immediately when I met Mario that this was a future star,” Schiano said. “I learned a ton about being a head football coach from Butch. He involved me in so many things that oftentimes you don’t get involved in as a defensive coordinator or as an assistant coach. So it prepared me for the opportunity, that when it came, I thought I was much better prepared than I would’ve been otherwise. I do look back at the time, meeting Mario in South Florida, and knowing that I wanted to bring him with me. And it wasn’t easy prying him out of there. You’d think it was a full-time job.
“But he was so close. He had and has one of the greatest families. I never got to meet his dad, but I heard so much about him from his brother Lou and him, and then meeting his mother -—just a tremendous woman. We’ve kind of grown together, right? We’ve been through some tough times, some good times … I knew when we got here he was the best coach on my coaching staff, and he was whatever he was: 25 years old, 26 years old. I trust him blind and there’s not a lot of people that I trust in this world. That, to me, is the biggest thing.”
When Schiano brought Cristobal to his neck of the woods, he helped the fledgling assistant learn how to be a coach after three seasons as a graduate assistant.
“I didn’t know anything,” Cristobal said. “I just checked into the Embassy Suites with a large pizza, a whole milk, a bottle, and said, ‘I’ll see you at 5 a.m. tomorrow.’ … I learned the work ethic to a different level from coach Schiano. It was something that I think other people couldn’t fathom: the detail that went into recruiting, the detail that went into game planning, drawing up first- and second-down football and the field zone vs the red zone and third down, and the details that went with it and how to teach it. He taught me how to teach.”
Miami is an early favorite in the bowl game between the two close friends, but the postseason game won’t come between them. Schiano said it would be “special” and that he could not wait for the game.
“In life, you meet people, you can probably count them on one hand, people that you truly trust, truly admire,” Schiano said. “Mario Cristobal’s one of those guys.”
