Miami’s Cristobal reviews offense, defense after Hurricanes’ Saturday spring scrimmage

Miami had its second spring scrimmage — the ninth of 15 NCAA-allotted practice sessions —Saturday morning at Greentree Field. The scrimmage was closed to the media and general public, but the next and final scrimmage culminates spring practice at 7:30 p.m. April 14, when the public is invited to the spring game at DRV PNK Stadium.

Here is what coach Mario Cristobal said in a UM-produced video after the situational scrimmage. He was interviewed by former Canes offensive lineman Don Bailey Jr., the Canes color analyst for radio broadcasts.

Cristobal did the video without mentioning a single player.

Bailey: “Coach, two weeks away from spring game. How we coming?”

Cristobal: “I’ll tell you what was neat to watch today. The points of emphasis, besides the scheme part, that’s the obvious. We have a couple of new coordinators, so schematically we’re different. But coaching culture, coaching how you finish plays, technique and fundamentals, those things are starting to show up more consistently. They got to show up more.

“And then how you finish plays the effort behind it. So that part is coming along. We still got a ways to go. We got to push that as coaches. On Greentree, you gotta practice hard and you gotta push players hard. If you can’t do that as a coach, you can’t coach here.

“The second part is it’s good to watch a lot of these young guys making plays. For the spring game it’s going to be exciting for our fans to see schematically some of the things we’re doing, and then some of these new guys watching them get after it, because they’re pretty damn good.’’

Bailey asked about new defensive coordinator Lance Guidry and the progress of the new scheme being implemented.

Cristobal on Guidry

Cristobal: “The guy is as good as a football teacher as it gets and as good of a connector of human beings that you’re going to find, as well. He’s a tough son of a gun and then he coaches that way. He gets the best out of his players. He’s extremely smart. He understands everything from the front to the back. There’s no B.S. to him. He wants to put his head down and work and get us better.

“We have some areas that are better than others. That’s part of it. We gotta keep developing and keep recruiting. You got people in here, but he’s getting the most out of the guys right now.”

And what about the offense?

Offense faster

“They looked fast today,’’ the coach said. “They played faster today. We’ve installed just about everything and then we’re going to do it today. Today we really streamlined things to let them go out there and play fast. And they played better. The offense and defense, they exchanged blows. The offense went down and scored, the defense came back and stopped them late and then got a negative play and got them out of field goal range.

“Overall, you saw a much better response. We gotta train that. We gotta keep fixing culture man. You can’t have a front-running mentality. When stuff doesn’t go well you gotta bust your butt and keep moving forward. And your best play has gotta show. There were moments today when we showed that and others where we gotta get better.”

UM continues spring practice on Tuesday.

More from assistants

Recently hired receivers coach Kevin Beard and running backs coach Tim Harris Jr., both former star athletes at UM, were asked Thursday how they felt about returning to Coral Gables.

“This is a great opportunity for me to get back home, get back to my roots, and really pour into these kids what was poured into me,’’ said Beard, who who was part of UM’s last national championship team in 2001 and previously coached receivers at Toledo. He said Miami represents “brotherhood and accountability” and that the UM “family” helped mold him me into “the man, father and husband,’’ he is today.

Harris, a former Miami track star who most recently served as the co-offensive coordinator, running backs coach and assistant head coach at UCF, said when he began his career he always wanted it “to be back here at some point.’’

“Everything this offseason lined up perfectly — the timing was great,’’ he said. ...And it’s been it’s been great every day.”