Miami’s Mario Cristobal downplayed Deion Sanders‘ Colorado football flip of Cormani McClain from the ‘Canes to the Buffs at ACC Media Days — denying the vice a salty head coach can fall into, unaffectionately referred to by Cristobal as “hater mode.”
“I don’t think that losing a guy or gaining one guy makes or breaks an entire program,” Cristobal said (h/t Buffs Beat). “I don’t think it’s healthy, and I don’t think it’s productive to focus on a guy that you miss. You can only have 85 (players), and you can land between 25 to 40 a year, right… Those are about the number that you can have. You can only be so deep at certain positions. When you miss a guy, you don’t go ‘hater mode.’ You know what you do? You wish that young man the best. Let him go and have great success. He might’ve been a Miami Hurricane… might not have been one… He’s not one right now, and it doesn’t matter. Go on and have great success, and I think all parties will be just fine.”
Cristobal took the high road as much as possible, putting the focus on his own Hurricanes recruits and off of the one that got away. The Miami head coach is not in any position to stir up controversy with a recruit given the underperformance of his initial go-round for the U. Cristobal certainly doesn’t need to create more friction with the ‘Canes’ brain trust.
With Deion Sanders, any cornerback ‘can and will’ commit to Colorado football
The instant reaction to McClain’s Colorado football flip from The Ledger’s Chris Boyle was that Coach Prime has a monopoly on the cornerback position on a national scale.
“…any cornerback in the country can and will go to Colorado,” Boyle prefaced before saying, “This is the second year in a row that Deion’s landed the No. 1 corner in the country. His credibility at the position stands out. He’s one of the best to ever play the position and that resonates with a lot of guys. The No. 1 thing is, when it comes to that position, you can’t rule out any player.”
Sanders will always have things to say to the families of recruits that will hold a denser weight than just about anyone else talking to a star defensive back. Having an ace up his sleeve at a position where the gap from the top guys to the middle of the pack is vast is one of many advantages Coach Prime brings to the table in Boulder.