Mario Cristobal ranked 19th best Power 5 head coach

Mario Cristobal is 19th in the ranking of the Power Five head coaches by CBS Sports. Cristobal dropped three spots after being ranked the 16th best Power Five head coach while at Oregon last season. The ranking of 19 for Cristobal is an improvement of 13 spots from Manny Diaz who was ranked the 32nd best 2021 FBS head coach.

Miami finished 7-5 during the 2021 season leading to the change from Diaz to Cristobal. Oregon was 10-3 during the 2021 regular season. Cristobal finished 35-13 in four-plus seasons as the Oregon head coach. Oregon won two Pac 12 Championships and three Pac 12 North titles during the Cristobal tenure.

Miami has won one ACC Coastal Division title and no conference championships as an ACC member since 2004. Cristobal is the third highest-rated coach in the ACC behind Dave Clawson of Wake Forest who is 17th and Dabo Swinney of Clemson who is third. That places Cristobal as the top-ranked coach in the ACC Coastal Division.

Cristobal might have fallen because of blowout losses to Utah late in the regular season and in the Pac 12 Championship game in 2021. Miami games at Texas A&M in September and Clemson in November will be a barometer for Cristobal when the 2023 Power Five coaching rankings are released a year from now.

"19 Miami (Fla.)“Mario Cristobal: I was expecting Cristobal to get a mini-Miami bump in the rankings, but I guess he’s being punished for only winning the Pac-12 North instead of his third consecutive Pac-12 title. Cristobal turned the Ducks into the West Coast’s most fearsome powerhouse, and now he returns home to Miami.I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if he wins multiple ACC titles like he did Pac-12 titles, he’ll be ranked a lot higher than this. 2021 rank: 16 (-3)”"

Tom Fornelli wrote the summaries of the coaches for CBS Sports after he and his colleagues including voting from their partner site 247 Sports voted on the Power Five coaching rankings. The rankings can be volatile with no set of guidelines to determine how the coaches should be ranked.

Cristobal is one of the most accomplished coaches on the list. Nick Saban of Alabama, Swinney, Kirby Smart defending national championship with Georgia and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M who won a title with Florida State are the only coaches on the list with that distinction. Eight active coaches have college football playoff appearances.

Cristobal will have to at least lead Miami to frequent New Year Six Bowl appearances to move up on the list. To get into the top 10, Miami will need its first CFP appearance. The highest Oregon finished during the Cristobal tenure was fifth after winning the Rosebowl following the 2019 season.