Miami head coach Mario Cristobal says Clemson's running backs are bullies

Will Shipley is one of a couple "bullies" on the Clemson offense, in a good way, for the Tigers, according to Miami coach Mario Cristobal.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Oct 17 07:00:06 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Mario Cristobal says Clemson is still stacked with talent. He also says the running backs are bullies.

Saturday night’s matchup in Miami Gardens features teams headed in opposite directions – the Tigers have won two ACC games in a row after the loss to Florida State, while Miami has started the conference slate with consecutive losses to Georgia Tech and North Carolina.

Miami and Clemson face off Saturday night at 8 pm (ACC Network), and Cristobal, the Hurricanes’ head coach, says the Tigers are dangerous.

“Clemson, obviously an excellent football team,” Cristobal said Monday. “Stacked with talent, very well coached, championship caliber program for a while now and looking forward to this opportunity coming up on Saturday.”

Cristobal was asked how the Hurricanes don’t let two losses turn into three.

“You do it with leadership at all levels. You do it at the coaching level, you do it with the best leaders on your team, you do it with honesty, you do it with transparency,” he said. “I think if you ever deviate from that, is when you create issues. I think what's very clear to us is, yeah, we've made a lot of progress as a team. Offensively and defensively, the improvement statistically is staggering. It's really, really good, but we've made some really good plays in some critical moments, and we've heard ourselves in some critical moments.

“And that's at all levels, because we take everything as players and as coaches, and that is very tangible. That's something that you could see on film. That's something that you feel obviously when the things are good and when you feel the consequences. So I think whenever it's real, then moving forward is something that is, it's never easy, but the challenge and the approach to it is very real.”

Cristobal said Clemson’s rushing attack was formidable with Will Shipley and Phil Mafah, and said the Tigers are physical at the point of attack.

“Fast, powerful, right? Guys are bullies, right? They do a great job. They do a great job up front, their tight ends,” Cristobal said. “Schematically, they present a lot of eyewash, a lot of challenges, but they’re physical, Physical football team. Those are a lot of stacked classes of high caliber talent coming together, and they do a really, really good job. They’re are a couple plays away from being 6-0. So they present a lot of challenges, and again, we were looking forward to being at our best on Saturday.”

The Hurricanes allowed UNC to rush for 235 yards last week.

“Well, I think that tempo got us. Gotta be honest with that. And you saw that on tape. I think they run the ball really hard. They run it well,” he said. “They blocked us well. They ran through some hard tackles. Well, you know we did not play the caliber of defense, especially rush defense, that we've been capable of showing, that we have done. And I'm gonna give more credit to them. I don't want to say anything negative about us. I just don't throw our guys under the bus. We got to coach it better. We got to do things to help ourselves out schematically when a team gets rolling like that, and certainly things that we have looked at studied and going to make improvements.”