David HaleJan 7, 2026, 12:18 PM ET
- College football reporter.
- Joined ESPN in 2012.
- Graduate of the University of Delaware.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Miami is on the brink of a berth in the College Football Playoff National Championship, but the Hurricanes also have more than a half-dozen players in the transfer portal. That’s a recipe for gamesmanship, coach Mario Cristobal said.
Asked Wednesday if he thought opponents would attempt to contact former players for inside information during the playoff and portal overlap, Cristobal said, “It happens all the time.” But he’s not pointing the finger at any players who have left the program.
“If you don’t think it happens, we’re kidding ourselves,” Cristobal said. “But I blame the adults. We created this system, right? We’re supposed to be setting an example. We’re supposed to be setting the standard. When you create a system that has as many holes as it does, shame on you if you’re surprised by some of the results that come with it.”
Miami faces Ole Miss on Thursday in the CFP Semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl with a trip to the national championship game on the line. While Cristobal isn’t ignoring the reality of a football calendar that creates ample opportunity for gamesmanship, Rebels coach Pete Golding hasn’t been able to avoid the chaos either.
Since Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss to take the LSU job a month ago, Golding has been forced to balance an offensive staff working double duty between two schools while trying to retain his own roster — including reupping quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and star tailback Kewan Lacy — recruit from the portal and prepare for playoff games. That all of it is bound to leave some margin for potential tampering, trading of inside information or just general distractions comes with the territory, he said.
“It’s competition,” Golding said. “People trying to win. It’s if you’re playing tennis or whatever, people are trying to win. A lot of people would do whatever it takes to win at their job, regardless morally what it is. We always have to deal with that.”
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Cristobal made a point of praising Golding’s handling of the Ole Miss program in the weeks since Kiffin’s departure, including addressing endless questions about which members of his offensive staff would be available for Thursday’s game.
“Taking over a program in this landscape,” Cristobal said, “I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for what his work has been. To be able to navigate all this and still have the success he’s having, it’s off the charts. It’s awesome.”
Several coaches, including Oregon‘s Dan Lanning, whose Ducks are playing Indiana in the other semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Friday, have suggested the fix for all the chaos is to shrink the playoff into a more condensed window that would wrap up the season by early January.
Golding said he expects this to be a major conversation in the offseason, but he downplayed the overall impact on his team ahead of the Fiesta Bowl.
Cristobal said he would be open to any changes to address the competing incentives at this time of year but acknowledged that there are myriad mitigating factors too.
“We could certainly sit and have a lengthy dissertation or conversation,” Cristobal said, “but I think the powers that be are doing everything possible to make it make sense, make it something that’s feasible academically, from a football standpoint, from a health standpoint. But if you get to this point in the season, regardless of the challenges that come with it, you have to be extremely grateful.”