Mario Cristobal Is Expected to Finalize an Agreement to Be Miami's New Head Coach

After one of the strangest coaching searches — if that's what we're calling it — not involving Tennessee in recent memory, it appears the University of Miami will hire a new head football coach in Oregon's Mario Cristobal as soon as today.

I struggle to call what Miami has gone through a "coaching search" because it never actually needed a coach. Manny Diaz wasn't fired until UM was sure it had Cristobal in its back pocket. The Hurricanes went after Cristobal while retaining Diaz as a backup plan if they didn't get the guy they wanted. They also did so all while not having an athletic director. Clemson's Dan Radakovich is expected to take the job, but all of this was going on with no AD in place.

If I was Diaz, I would have made UM fire me at the beginning of this before I would have allowed myself and my assistants to get dragged through whatever the hell this whole ordeal was. If you want to go get a new coach, that's fine, but you're going to pay me my buyout and take the risk that you end up with somebody other than Cristobal. I'm not sitting around as your backup plan in case you don't get the guy you actually want. You can keep me or fire me. At least Diaz will get his buyout at the end of all this.

It seems like Miami got what it wanted, though. If and when Cristobal goes back to Miami, that will open up yet another high-profile job at Oregon in what has been the wildest coaching carousel in some time.

Cristobal played at Miami from 1989-1992 and coached at UM from 2004-2006. He's done a hell of a job at Oregon and seems to be a great fit for what Miami needs to actually achieve its perennial goal of being "back." It sucks how Diaz was treated throughout all this, but that's the way college football goes sometimes.