Miami’s on-field product vs. recruiting efforts is reaching uncharted waters

Miami is treading uncharted waters from a recruiting standpoint.

Sure, some programs that have struggled, especially early in coaching tenures, have signed strong recruiting classes. After going 7-6 in his first year at Alabama, Nick Saban inked a top recruiting class that featured future NFL in Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Mark Barron, D’onta Hightower, and Mark Barron amongst others.

While that debut campaign for Saban was disappointing, the results were nothing remotely close to what has happened to Miami scoreboard wise. The Crimson Tide didn’t lose a single game by more than a touchdown that fall. Alabama also beat two ranked teams in Arkansas and Tennessee and lost to a ranked Georgia team in overtime.

Kirby Smart went 8-6 in his first year at Georgia back in 2016 with losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech and did get blown out by Ole Miss early in the year. But that same Bulldogs team beat a top ten ranked Auburn squad in mid-November. They also lost to a No. 11 ranked Tennessee team on the road 34-31 in Neyland Stadium.

Smart went on to ink a No. 3 recruiting class that went on to produce multiple first-round NFL Draft picks, including Andrew Thomas, Eric Stokes, and Isaiah Wilson, plus NFL star running back D’Andre Swift.

Even early Dabo Swinney and Clemson being a half-decent on-field comparison (Swinney went 9-5 in his first full year in 2009 then dropped to 6-7 in year two), the Tigers didn’t sign a top ten class until the 2011 cycle – three years into the tenure.

Miami winning even six games this fall is seeming less and less likely by the day, and the way that it looks on a weekly basis simply isn’t that of other top programs who have built it in the past. But the production Mario Cristobal will have to match is the recruiting prowess after a less-than-ideal year one. And he will have to do it with an on-field product that’s significantly worse than SEC programs he’s hoping to mirror.

Right now, and truly over the course of weekly struggles, Miami’s No. 8 recruiting class has echoed Cristobal’s vision for the program. Nothing that either member of the class has signified that despite a 45-3 loss to Florida State, or an abysmal 45-21 loss to Duke a couple of weeks ago, has impacted their standing with Miami.

In fact, it might be the opposite. Most seem firmer in their pledges than ever before.

“It doesn’t take days to build Egypt. It takes years,” Francis Mauigoa, the nation’s top offensive tackle and a Miami commit said after the loss to FSU. “I still believe in Coach Cristobal. I still have trust in [Alex] Mirabal, Coach Joe [Salave’a], all the coaching staff and everything.”

It’s unprecedented territory. More often than not, stacking poor performances like Miami has over the course of the fall results in poor recruiting results, or at least some prospects questioning their standing with the program. Especially when this elite crop of guys have options to potentially play elsewhere.

That’s simply not happening at Miami right now, though it does feel like Cristobal and the Hurricanes are going to continue to test how firm those commitments are over the course of the fall with Early Signing Day just under seven weeks away.

Right now, it sounds like the group collectively is locked in with multiple top prospects taking to social media and expressing their long-term commitment to the program.

Tight end commit Jackson Carver was in attendance and reiterated that everyone is all in.

“Game did not go as we would have liked, but it’s all part of the process. We’re all solid. We’re all going to stay solid and come in in January ready to work and turn this around,” Carver said.

While betting against Cristobal on the recruiting trail would be unwise, considering he landed the nation’s No. 2 overall prospect in a stunner just days after the aforementioned Duke loss, the tides are pulling the program further and further away from shore. What happens next can’t necessarily be predicted or formulated using the context of history because what the program is dealing with on Saturdays while simultaneously trying to accomplish on the trail is unique to anything we’ve seen thus far.