Miami, FL

Cristobal enters Year 3 of the Miami rebuild, still driven by the pursuit of a return to prominence

Published

2 years ago

August 19, 2024

Cristobal enters Year 3 of the Miami rebuild, still driven by the pursuit of a return to prominence

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Mario Cristobal is not a jewelry guy. Doesn’t wear any. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t possess a bunch of shiny, sparkling things.

Inside Cristobal’s office at Miami, there are at least a dozen of his rings on display. Rings from when he was a player for the Hurricanes. Rings from when he was an assistant under Nick Saban at Alabama. Rings from his time as coach at Oregon. He’s one of only nine current head coaches with multiple conference titles at what until this year was called the Power Five level, after guiding Oregon to a pair of Pac-12 crowns before coming home to Miami.

He won’t wear the next ring that comes his way, either. But he wants it. Badly.

“It’s an unbelievable, addicting feeling that you crave every second while you work,” Cristobal said of those ring-worthy victories. “Not necessarily because of the actual hardware, because I don’t wear any. It’s because of the moments, the accomplishments, the goal setting, the benchmarks that just keep the program on a certain trajectory.”

Miami hasn’t had that moment yet under Cristobal. In Year 3 of his time as coach of the Hurricanes, he truly believes the program is getting closer. The Hurricanes open the season ranked No. 19 in the AP Top 25, were picked third in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason poll, have the league’s preseason player of the year in transfer quarterback Cam Ward and have a roster transformed by tons of recruiting successes since Cristobal came back to his alma mater.

Now, it’s time to put pieces together.

“At our place we say how you do anything is how you do everything,” Cristobal said. “Whether it be the classroom, the community, how you are at home with your family, how you are in the community with people, how you are in a locker room, on the road, how you are when things are going well or when they’re not going so well and you face adversity. Greatness is being the absolute best you can be all the time. It’s a way of life.”

The rings show that he’s right. He led a turnaround at FIU, led a turnaround at Oregon, and — he believes — is in the midst of another at Miami.

“We have been working really hard to get to a point where our expectations for ourselves continue to grow,” Cristobal said. “We want those. We welcome those.”

Ward the leader

Ward has energized Miami without taking a snap yet. The Hurricanes still have Emory Williams, who played well in his opportunities at quarterback last season for Miami, but the offense is engineered to run through Ward.

Ward said he’s already clicked nicely with his new head coach.

“I’m already a confident person,” Ward said. “But we have a head coach like that who is going to instill that in not only yourself but the whole team, offense and defense. It’s going to help us later in the season.”

More transfer keys

A pair of big-time transfer portal additions to watch: former Oregon State running back Damien Martinez and former Washington safety Mishael Powell.

Martinez ran for 2,167 yards in two seasons with the Beavers. Powell was a starter for the Huskies. Probably isn’t a coincidence that those two players — and Ward, too — all came from some of Cristobal’s rival schools from his Pac-12 days at Oregon.

Restrepo chasing history

Xavier Restrepo enters this season 283 receiving yards away from 2,000 in his Miami career. If he gets there, he’d be the 10th Hurricane ever to do that — joining a list that includes Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Michael Irvin and Lamar Thomas.

Moss has the Miami record: 2,547. Restrepo needs 830 to tie him and finished last season with 1,092 yards.

Kicking game strong

Kicker Andres Borregales is back for his senior season and should continue his climb up Miami’s all-time scoring list.

Borregales was brilliant in 2023, connecting on 22 of 26 field-goal tries. He’s 56 for 67 on those in his Miami career and has 289 points through three seasons.

Michael Badgley (403) and Carlos Huerta (397) are Miami’s all-time leaders in points. Borregales might have a shot of chasing down their marks this season.

The schedule

There might be a real argument for a “state championship” in the Sunshine State this year, since 2024 will mark only the fourth time in the last 20 seasons that Miami, Florida and Florida State will all play one another; the Hurricanes open in Gainesville against the Gators on Aug. 31. Florida State comes to Miami Gardens on Oct. 26.

Other games of note: home against Virginia Tech on Sept. 27, the return of former coach Manny Diaz when Duke visits on Nov. 2, and a finale at Syracuse on Nov. 30.

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Miami, FL

Community concerned for possible demolition of NW Miami-Dade warehouse that caught on fire

Published

4 hours ago

March 7, 2026

Press Room

Community concerned for possible demolition of NW Miami-Dade warehouse that caught on fire – NBC 6 South Florida

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Miami, FL

U.S. attorney in Miami targeting Cuban Communist leaders with new initiative, sources say

Published

1 day ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

U.S. attorney in Miami targeting Cuban Communist leaders with new initiative, sources say

The top federal prosecutor in Miami is spearheading a new initiative targeting Cuban leaders for prosecution, sources familiar with the plan tell CBS News.

Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is working with officials from federal and local law enforcement agencies and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, to establish a new Cuban prosecution working group, the sources said. OFAC is the office responsible for imposing sanctions.

The group plans to focus on prosecutions involving economic crimes, drugs, violent crimes and immigration-related violations, with a focus on targeting those in the Communist Party leadership, the sources added.

A Justice Department spokesperson told CBS News: “Federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office could not be immediately reached for comment. The plans for the new working group were reported earlier by the Washington Post.

President Trump has indicated he’s been eyeing Cuba’s leaders, after the U.S. ousted Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro and brought him to the United States to face drug charges in January, and recently launched a joint war with Israel against Iran last week that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The president told CNN in an interview on Friday that Cuba’s communist government was likely to be toppled next.

“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon,” Mr. Trump said, according to CNN.

Quiñones and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Yara Klukas are the same prosecutors who are separately leading an investigation into former Obama-era intelligence officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, over an intelligence assessment that determined that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to help benefit Mr. Trump.

Late last year, Quiñones’ office sent subpoenas to former government officials requesting a broad swath of records, including paper or digital documents, text messages and emails associated with the preparation of the intelligence community’s January 2017 assessment.

In recent weeks, updated subpoenas that expanded the date range for the documents were issued in the matter.

Sara Cook

contributed to this report.

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Miami, FL

Firefight at NW Miami-Dade warehouse enters 2nd day: ‘It burned it all up’

Published

2 days ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

Firefight at NW Miami-Dade warehouse enters 2nd day: ‘It burned it all up’

Video shows bright orange flames still burning at a warehouse in Northwest Miami-Dade on Friday, almost 24 hours after crews first responded.

The flames broke out before 11 a.m. Thursday, sending towers of thick black smoke into the sky, and crews have been attempting to put the fire out since.

Officials said the structure located just east of Red Road and south of Florida’s Turnpike Extension is more than twice the size of a Costco warehouse and contains hazardous materials inside.

More than 200 firefighters from both Broward and Miami-Dade counties have been fighting the blaze, which officials say could burn for days.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Lives spared, livelihoods lost

Miami-Dade Deputy Fire Chief Danny Cardeso said no injuries were reported.

The driver of an 18-wheeler told NBC6 he was at the warehouse, which stores inventory for shipments, when the fire alarm went off.

He said everyone immediately evacuated, no one was hurt, and everyone inside was accounted for. Still, some workers and business owners fear they lost their livelihoods.

Benny Monción, who owns DBenny Sazón, one of the food trucks parked at the facility, was in tears when she spoke to NBC6 at the scene.

She said a friend of hers who also owns a food truck called to tell her how he fared.

“He called me just now, we were watching the news, and my truck was still intact, but his, the fire got it,” she said, her voice breaking as she put her head in her hand. “It burned it all up.”

She said she wasn’t sure what had happened to her truck, which normally operates on 50 North University Drive in Pembroke Pines, as the fire raged.

“I ask God that mine at least can be OK, but I feel so bad [that his didn’t make it], because these are hardworking people, looking to earn their daily living that in this country is too hard,” Monción said. “It’s so many things.”

Air quality concerns

A public safety alert was issued at one point Thursday due to the heavy smoke. The alert recommended those with respiratory problems and medical conditions to shelter in place if possible.

Dr. Donny Perez, a medical director at Memorial Regional Hospital South, said fires like this can send fine particles into the air that can irritate the lungs and cause coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness, sore throat, chest pain and palpitations.

“Even their eyes can get irritated, the sore throat. So the best thing is to stay indoors with the windows closed, avoid outdoor exercise. Wear an N-95 mask if you must go outside. Use your rescue inhalers as prescribed if you do have lung disease,” he said.

Resident Gloria Downey said the smoke was concerning, especially with the uncertainty about what materials could be burning.

“I mean I don’t know what’s in that building, but I have lived here since before that building was built off and on, and God knows what’s in there,” she said. “We have the house completely sealed. We have air filters running in both rooms. The air condition is off. It’s a little hot in Miami, but we’ll be all right.”

Drought and wind may hinder firefight

Winds on Friday are blowing consistently at 10-20 mph toward the northwest, pushing the smoke over a nearby landfill and out over the Everglades.

“Just a couple of spotty little showers here, not enough to really help with the fire,” NBC6’s meteorologist Adam Berg said. “But the winds certainly don’t help.”

Traffic impacts

Officials asked people to avoid the area while they worked to put out the fire. Northwest 47th Avenue is closed between Honey Hill Drive (Northwest 199th Street) to Northwest 207th Drive.

Take Northwest 57th Avenue as an alternate route.

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