ANALYSIS: Roster rebuild looks on point for future based on scholarship eligibility tracker … if Cristobal has recruited the right guys

Miami Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal has put his stamp on the Miami roster as he is set to enter Year 3, with only seven players he didn’t personally recruit to the team – WRs Xavier Restrepo, Jacolby George and Mike Redding, OL Zion Nelson and Jalen Rivers, LB Chase Smith and PK Andy Borregales. Nineteen of the 22 position starters this season are guys Cristobal hand-picked in recruiting or out of the portal, with the lone exceptions Restrepo, George and Rivers.

As you take a deeper dive inside our scholarship eligibility tracker , some patterns emerge. Ones that bode well for the future … if Cristobal and his staff recruited the right kind of talent and develop it.

That’s because 37 players are freshmen (43.5 percent of the total scholarship players), with another 17 sophomores (20 percent). The 14 juniors make up just 16.5 percent of the team, and the 17 seniors another 20 percent.

Of those 17 seniors, by the way, two are specialists (Andy Borregales, snapper Mason Napper) and an astounding 13 of the remaining 15 were transfer additions. Only Jacolby George and Xavier Restrepo are current seniors that were recruited to the program from the start.

This has become Cristobal’s team, and while the last two subpar seasons can be blamed on shoddy roster building by Manny Diaz & Co., the excuses will start to wear thin if results don’t start pouring in this season or next, at the latest.

This year’s built in excuse, not that Cristobal would need one, is that youth remains a factor that forced him to take a lot of portal help. Even though our projected depth chart shows the majority of the team is freshmen and sophomores, of the 22 starters in our projected depth chart there are 17 juniors and seniors. And 11 of those are transfers into the program. That’s called a stopgap measure while Cristobal builds by doing what he does best: Recruiting and developing. The depth this year will be, for the most part, young and inexperienced. Otherwise Miami is in great part relying on guys that were developed elsewhere and are here for an NIL paycheck.

OFFENSIVE DEPTH ANALYSIS

DEFENSIVE DEPTH ANALYSIS

With a transfer-laden 17 seniors (13 of the seniors are transfers), the good news is that’s a starting point for another 25+ recruiting class this year, when you consider the attrition that always goes on in college football nowadays. And the roster numbers also show that perhaps the transfer portal won’t need a fourth straight double-digit haul.

If young guys can start to prove themselves worthy, perhaps a handful of “free agents” is all you’ll need.

You can also see the balance in the classes – one QB in each year freshman through senior, RBs in each class other than senior, 2-4 receivers in every class, a tight end in every year other than junior, and an O line stacked with young guys (seven freshmen, three sophomores, four juniors and one senior). On defense you have 10 freshmen linemen that will compete to build the future foundation, with two sophomores, a junior and six seniors ( ALL six seniors arrived at UM via the transfer portal).

You’ll find a linebacker in every class, including three freshmen. At DB you have six freshmen, three sophomores, two juniors and two seniors.

All of the above is well balanced for future success … if guys pan out.

So start the old guys, develop the young ones right? The problem Cristobal faced when he arrived was he didn’t have good enough old guys. So now the portal should have served its purpose, regardless of transfer misses the last two years that contributed to 5-7 and 7-6 seasons. Cristobal’s first full recruiting class will be entering year 3 in 2025, more than enough time for development and seasoning.

It’s all starting to balance out, and the guys he recruited in his first full cycle should be ready to help out as mainly depth this year and then battling to start next spring and into the fall.

This is all assuming, of course, that Cristobal has landed the right guys.

If he has, this is a program that could just keep stacking talent on talent and piling on wins at a rate that hasn’t been seen in Miami for 20 years.

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