By Scott Salomon
This was not the story that I was planning on writing Saturday night. I was going to write about how Miami was back and how they were undefeated after five games and were looking forward to a big matchup with North Carolina next week at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill.
Not tonight. Not after the “Blunder from Down Under”.
Cut, block and delete.
On a night that Miami dubbed “Miami Nights” as they broke out an all-black uniform combination, it turned out to be “Miami Frights” as the Canes lost to Georgia Tech 23-20 on a last second touchdown Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Tech did not kick the extra point.
Let me set the stage for you.
Miami scratched and clawed back more than once from three Tyler Van Dyke interceptions that led to two Georgia Tech scores only to fumble the ball, with the lead and only :26 seconds left to play in the contest. Tech had no timeouts and could not stop the clock.
More Sports News
Why didn’t Miami coaches call a play for the quarterback to line up in victory formation and take a knee?
With 26 seconds left to play, Miami Head Football Coach Mario Cristobal opted to run the ball into the middle of the Tech defensive line with Don Chaney, Jr. who was having a good night running the ball, but was not stupendous. He had 103 yards on 23 carries.
Instead of taking a knee and entering victory formation and escaping with a three-point victory, Miami fumbled the ball and then let Georgia Tech go 74 yards and score on the final play to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
The fumble was reviewed as it appeared that Chaney was done before the ball came out. However, the call was upheld and Miami lost the ball.
Do you need a lifeline? Do you want to phone a friend? That had to be the dumbest coaching move, with the most undesirable result, in the history of college football.
Of course, Tech quarterback Haynes King threw a desperation heave that was caught by Christian Leary who slipped behind the Miami secondary and scored the game winner from 44 yards out with :02 remaining.
Why didn’t they just take a knee?
Cristobal admitted in his post game news conference that he should have called a timeout, recalibrated and taken a knee.
Too late now. The first loss is in the books and the road to the ACC Championship Game just got longer and filled with potholes.
“We should have taken a knee,” Cristobal said as he opened his doom and gloom press conference. “Gave them a chance and they took advantage of it and scored…..no excuse. We didn’t play to our standard and we didn’t coach to our standard.”
The Miami coach then said that they had to put this game behind them and concentrate on North Carolina next week.
Easier said than done. This game will live in infamy in the players’ minds for all eternity. This one mistake killed the season for the 4-1 Hurricanes who fall to 0-1 in the ACC.
One might think that Super Mario would have learned from prior mistakes. Oh, contrare. He did this once before while serving as the head coach at Oregon, according to Brett McMurphy of ESPN on Twitter.
Not 1st time, Mario Cristobal not taking a knee cost him. In 2018, Oregon fumbled w/51 seconds left, Stanford gets tying FG & wins 38-31 in OT https://t.co/aUUhTD9DPX
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) October 8, 2023
In 2018, Oregon fumbled with 51 seconds left against Stanford, who ended up kicking a game tying field goal and then won the game in overtime.
With the schedule that Miami has remaining, with games at home against Clemson and Louisville and on the road against perennial playoff contender Florida State, this was a game that Miami could ill-afford to lose.
“We have to get right back to work…locker room, everybody feels it…We’ve got to come out and be better,” Cristobal said. “
Forget the fact that Miami had over 50 four and five star players at the game who wanted to see Miami become the Miami of yesteryear, and the same team that defeated Texas A&M earlier this season.
Now those players are left shaking their heads and probably are wondering why the head coach would not take a simple kneel down with the lead and :26 seconds left in the game. Oh, Tech also had no timeouts remaining. A kneel down and Miami escapes with a win.
Instead, Miami gets a free trip to football hell and is now the butt of jokes all over the brand formally known as Twitter
Retweet if your coach knows to take a knee if you’re winning the game and have less than 40 seconds on the play clock while the other team has zero timeouts!!
— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) October 8, 2023
This is only one play, and one loss, but how can players look Cristobal in the eyes anymore after that blunder? With recruiting reaching its apex, do recruits still believe in this coach, in this program, after that pitiful decision at the end of a game.
As Roy Bellamy of the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz said so eloquently on Twitter, “The entire country is laughing at the University of Miami football program. And they should because what happened tonight was a comedy of errors. A complete joke.”
Linebacker Francis Mauigoa was diplomatic after the game, a game that he played his heart out.
“We’ve got to keep our head up….We’ve got to move forward,” the linebacker said. “We’re going to put this in the past, learn from it and grow from it.”
Van Dyke does not get a pass either. Instead of playing like he did through the first four games this season, he regressed into an infantile-like performer who could not find his open receivers and of the passes that he did complete, three were to the other team.
“I put us in that situation,” Van Dyke said. “I can’t throw three interceptions.
I can’t force the ball and make bad decisions. It’s not complicated, it’s football. It really sucks now, it really does, but we have to move on. We still have seven games left in the season.”
So, instead of a match up against North Carolina next week, with two unbeaten teams, a sullen Hurricanes team will crawl into Chapel Hill with one loss and try to defeat one of the most prolific passing teams in the country.
The late game snafu just added onto Miami’s miserable evening, just before the game, Cristobal announced that Pre-Season Freshman All-American candidate Samson Okunlola, who started twice this season at left tackle, will miss the rest of the 2023 campaign with a lower extremity injury.
And the night is just getting better in Hurricaneland.
