Welcome to the Andy Staples show. Very special guest. And he's up early in the morning where he is.

We're recording this at 7 a.m. Pacific time. Mario Cristobal is about nine hours into his day already because

obviously he's getting ready to recruit the class at 2022 and figuring out how to how to get another

record-setting Oregon class. Mario, how's it going? It's going well. You know, it's, what is it,

6 or 7 o'clock? We just had our lunch, so we're off to the day and get

gone. But it's going well, I really appreciate you having me on the show. Oh, no problem. I have wanted

to talk to you about, you know, the way you guys have been building this thing. And I came out to see

you your first year as a head coach, and you kind of took me through the blueprint for what you wanted, and a lot of it had to do with being able to build up the roster in a certain way. And it feels like you've gotten there, especially on the line of scrimmage. So I wanted to ask you, this is something I've always wondered from you, what are you looking, when you're looking for an offensive lineman, let's say,

you know, some of the, one of your assistant coaches brings you video of a guy and says, I like this guy. He, you know, he plays tackle in his high school, but maybe he's a guard for us.

So I don't, I'm not sure. What traits are you looking for in that person that says, I might be able to recruit this guy to be an Oregon duck?

Well, at the line of scrimmage, it's got to really pop now.

It's got to be a guy that makes it dense in the line of scrimmage in the sense that there's power, there's explosiveness.

There's the ability to lift guys and run them off the ball.

There's the ability to sit back, slide your feet and anchor and play with balance and body control. And to be heavy handed, but at the same time, light footed and to be able to play with a certain level of, I would say, engine, a motor that just doesn't quit, that doesn't give, that's

going to certainly affects all the guys around you in a positive way.

So the list of critical factors is pretty extensive and we don't want to compromise any

of those things.

Now again, you know, you got to develop guys and have certain techniques and fundamentals,

but those raw basic skills and the mentality, those are the

things that you just don't want to ever compromise. So Penae Soule signed in your first class as a

head coach at Oregon. He is, you know, they're probably not going to have the draft in person,

so he probably doesn't get to walk across the stage and hug Roger Goodell. But when he gets picked, whenever that is, it's going to be very high in this draft. How much does that help you when you're out trying to find the next guy? Well, I think more than anything else, it validates what we have been preaching since day one. You know, Pena, at the end of the day, is going to be a guy that played two years of college football, was the youngest one of the Outland Trophy, the first Polynesian player to win the Outland Trophy. He's on track to finish up his diploma. It was arguably the best lineman in college football. I want to say arguably was the best lineman in college football. Oh, yeah. I don't know if there's any argument you'll get there. No, there was no question. You know what happened too? He came in here and he developed in a system that we have spent our entire existence putting together in terms of O-line and the-line development. So I think it speaks loudly that, you know, everything that we've said and we've talked about with our parents that we sold in our program and come here to get a high level education to go in and to championship, to go and develop and be drafted at the highest level.

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