College Football: UConn and Pitt Should Be Knocking Down Mario Cristobal's Door

Now that the University of Connecticut and the University of Pittsburgh are suddenly without head football coaches, they both should be in a race to offer FIU's Mario Cristobal.

Cristobal, though his reputation may not have spread to the Northeast yet, is one of the best head coaching prospects in the country.

Cristobal, an all Big East tight offensive tackle for the University of Miami in their hay day (1989-1992), just led  FIU to it's first Sun Belt Conference Championship and it's first bowl win.

FIU defeated Toledo in the 2010 Little Caesars Bowl 34-32 in one of the most exciting bowl games of the season.

Cristobal took over as head coach of FIU after the 2006 season—a year which the Golden Panthers finished 0-12.

Cristobal is familiar with the Big East; he was an assistant coach with Miami when they were a member of the Big East Conference (1998-2000) and an assistant for Rutgers from 2001-2003.

But it's in the area of recruiting where Cristobal could help UConn or Pittsburgh with his inroads in the state of Florida.

While at Rutgers, Cristobal recruited many players from South Florida, the area he grew up in and played high school and college football.

With the firing of Pittsburgh's newly hired Mike Haywood, and the sudden departure of UConn's Randy Edsall, both schools find themselves under the gun to find replacements quickly.

As the 2011 recruiting season reaches its conclusion early next month, it becomes imperative for these programs to decide on a coach as soon as possible.  Pittsburgh has recently had its share of de-commitments with the firing of Dave Wannstedt, its coach for the last five seasons.

While both schools share an unexpected state of uncertainty about their next head football coach, sometimes things work out for a reason, but only one of the them will have the chance to bring Cristabol on board.

His name should be at the very top of both of school's search list and the race for his services should be on now.