Americans have spent much of the last decade engaged in nostalgia worship, and sports have been ground zero for that worship. Throwback uniforms abound in every sport; fans yearn for brazenly unpopular past institutions like the Bowl Championship Series; you can't research an NBA topic without running into eight former-player podcasts howling that things were better yesterday. The fine line between honoring and romanticizing the past has been obliterated.
Taking a sledgehammer to that viewpoint Tuesday was Miami football coach Mario Cristobal. In one of the most insightful answers to a question you'll see this year in any sport, Cristobal—a two-time national champion offensive tackle with the Hurricanes during their glory years—put forth a refreshingly forward-thinking vision for his team.
"It's nostalgia theater in this country. Everyone wants to go back, back, back," Cristobal told ESPN's Kevin Clark, a Miami graduate who asked whether the team should be thought of as "back." "We don't want to go back, we want to go forward. We want to take the principles and values of that brand of football and take it forward."
I asked Mario Cristobal about the phrase "The U is back." He was great.
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) September 23, 2025
"It's nostalgia theater in this country. Everyone wants to go back, back, back. Well, we don't want to go back, we want to go forward and take the principles of that brand of football and take it forward." pic.twitter.com/S7tNZuIGo0
So far, so good for the Hurricanes in that arena. Miami opened its season with a win over Notre Dame, crushed a ranked South Florida team two weeks later, and downed Florida on Saturday. Next up for the No. 2 team in the country: Florida State on Oct. 4.
The Hurricanes' fate this year has yet to be written, but in shedding the backward-looking stasis that afflicts so many modern institutions, Miami may have already won.
"Our (alumni) are coming back to practice... they're getting around our players, they're providing awesome mentorship. And all they're talking about is moving forward," Cristobal said. "Our guys want to make those guys proud, they want to play like them, but we don't want to go in a time capsule, brother. We want to go straight ahead and we want to make it happen now."
More College Football on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mario Cristobal Calls Out 'Nostalgia Theater' When Asked About Miami Being 'Back'.
