The national narrative may be "The U is back" but Mario Cristobal doesn't want to hear it

This past weekend, Miami jumped LSU and Penn State to claim the #2 spot in college football's AP poll.

The last time the Hurricanes were ranked this high, Mark Richt had the Hurricanes 9-0 back in 2017. Unfortunately for that squad, after improving to 10-0, those 'Canes lost the last three games of the season.

While Ohio State received 52 of the 66 first-place votes from the media panel, Miami gained ground with seven first-place votes, which more than doubled the amount of top votes they had prior to their beating of Florida, 26-7.

Nationally, the chatter for the first three weeks, as the 'Canes stormed out to a 3-0 start was that Miami was a really good football team, with some really good talent on both the offensive and defensive fronts and a steady veteran hand in former Georgia quarterback Carson Beck leading the way. 

But after improving to 4-0 with that commanding win over Billy Napier and the Gators, the whispers that "The U is back" are starting to get louder.

Asked about that by Kevin Clark earlier today, Cristobal wrote that off as "nostalgia theater."

Cristobal says back in The U's heyday, while they were "so damn good," they also irritated a lot of folks with their style of play (and admittedly arrogant moments) and those memories hold a special place in the hearts and minds of a lot of loyal fans.

"It's nostalgia theater in this country right now. Everyone wants to go back, back, back. Well, we don't want to go back. We want to go forward."

"Now, we want to take the principals and values of that brand of football, but we want to take it forward. I think the guys that play here, they want that too."

Cristobal goes on to share that players from Miami's past are often around the program and are providing excellent mentorship to this current team, and all those guys are talking to the current team about are moving forward.

"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 and go backwards brother, we want to go straight ahead and we want to make it happen now."