Navarro: Miamis epic errors drain all patience for Mario Cristobal to show progress

None of the given explanations made sense. Nothing would have.

Mario Cristobal blew it.

Miami lost a game it shouldn’t have, in stunningly idiotic fashion.

If quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is ordered to take a knee on a third-and-10 with the clock running under 40 seconds, the Hurricanes are 5-0 and talking about how they escaped with an ugly 20-17 win over Georgia Tech.

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Instead, the sports world is wondering why he handed the ball off to Don Chaney Jr. with the Yellow Jackets out of timeouts, leading to the fumble that set up the Yellow Jackets’ miracle comeback.

Surely, Cristobal had to have thought Georgia Tech had another timeout, right? Nope.

“There was no confusion out there,” he said.

No, this was just stupid stuff.

When asked directly about it after the game, Cristobal denied that the Hurricanes ran one more play because Chaney was closing in on the first 100-yard rushing game of his career. Chaney was sitting on 99 yards when he carried it for the final time. Miami’s official stats later reflected that Chaney finished with 106 yards. But in real-time, before his final carry, Miami’s official stats listed him at 99.

Chaney picked up four yards on his final touch but was stripped of the ball as he went to the ground. It appeared his left elbow might have hit the turf before the ball was pried free. But officials reviewed the fumble, and the play stood as called on the field.

Again, why did Miami not take a knee?

“We were moving the pile and we had a pretty good drive going,” Cristobal said before pausing. “I am not going to make an excuse for it and say we should have done this or that. Sometimes we can get carried away. But I should have just stepped in and said, ‘Hey, take a knee.’”

Instead, one of the most unimaginable and embarrassing losses in Hurricanes history took place.

Orlando’s own 😎@ChristianLeary4 called game

📺 @accnetwork pic.twitter.com/sj1LyCfRbf

— Georgia Tech Football (@GeorgiaTechFB) October 8, 2023

It’s a mistake you’d think every coach would try his best to avoid. Cristobal, though, has fallen victim to running an unnecessary play in a clock-killing situation twice now. It happened to his team at Oregon in 2018.

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The Ducks led Stanford 31-28 late, and quarterback Justin Herbert could have knelt to run the clock down to 16 or fewer seconds and set up a punt near midfield. Instead, Oregon running back CJ Verdell ran it on second-and-2 and fumbled. The Cardinal took over with 51 seconds remaining,  forced overtime and went on to beat the Ducks 38-31.

Cristobal’s explanation about Saturday’s clock management strategy on the final drive didn’t make much sense. Why would any coach in their right mind run it on third-and-10 with 33 seconds left in the game after Georgia Tech had used its final timeout two plays earlier?

“When the drive started, it was going to be at the 1:57 mark and we could burn about 1:27 off and then it was recalibrated,” Cristobal said of the clock.

Recalibrated?

“We should have taken a timeout there at the end,” he continued. “We thought he could get the first down and we talked about two hands on the ball, but that isn’t good enough. That’s it, we fumbled the ball and they went 75 yards in two plays. There is no excuse.”

What were the final 26 seconds like for the guy in charge on the other sideline? Well, Georgia Tech coach Brent Key was stunned Miami didn’t take a knee either. Surprise turned to elation when his team pounced on its opportunity, as Haynes King connected with Christian Leary on the game-winning 44-yard touchdown pass with two seconds left.

“I usually have a pretty good recollection of the game, but what does Will Ferrell say in ‘Old School’? I think I just blacked out,” Key said. “That’s what I felt like right then.”

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Miami hasn’t won an ACC home game yet under Cristobal. They’re 0-5 in league play at Hard Rock Stadium since school administrators signed the coach to a 10-year, $80 million deal in December 2021, replacing Manny Diaz, who is now Penn State’s ballyhooed defensive coordinator.

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Cristobal can recruit in ways Diaz couldn’t: Miami signed the seventh-best class in the country last cycle, the best signing class for the program in the last 15 years. And the Hurricanes seemed to be getting the attention of more top recruits after last year’s 5-7 meltdown. Miami had an audience full of recruits in attendance Saturday, including the best high school receiver in the country, Jeremiah Smith, a hometown product from a family of Canes fans who has been committed to Ohio State since December. Smith told The Athletic in March he wanted to see what Miami would do in Cristobal’s second season, whether the coach could really turn the program around and make the offense elite again.

It’s hard to imagine Smith left Saturday’s game impressed on either front. Van Dyke performed nothing like the quarterback who came in ranked No. 2 in the FBS in passing efficiency. He threw three interceptions and probably had a fourth pick dropped. Newly appointed Yellow Jackets defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer — and we mean promoted to take over last week, after a loss to Bowling Green — figured out how to frustrate Van Dyke rather easily.

Van Dyke forced the ball into tight coverage windows and paid for it repeatedly. But he also admitted the coverage schemes weren’t complicated.

“It really sucks. It really does,” Van Dyke said. “There’s still seven games left in the season. There’s still a lot in front of us. We can’t just dwell on this one loss and say our season is over.”

The thing is, it’s hard to believe the Hurricanes can prevent what happened to them Saturday from sending this season off the rails. For all the preseason talk about their expanded team leadership council, they looked like the same unprepared team coming off an idle week that they’ve been for the better part of the last decade.

Saturday’s game-winning touchdown was surrendered because All-American safety Kam Kinchens allowed Leary to get behind him in what was supposed to be prevent coverage. Kinchens is the heart and soul of Miami’s team. He’s not supposed to be making those mistakes. Yet it happened.

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North Carolina is up next; the unbeaten Tar Heels pounded Syracuse 40-7 on Saturday. Reigning ACC champion Clemson visits Hard Rock the following weekend.

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Cristobal blew a huge opportunity Saturday to prove Miami was past its bye-week blues and capable of handling a three-touchdown underdog.

The Hurricanes can start to redeem themselves by beating a Tar Heels team they’ve lost four consecutive games to, followed by a Clemson squad that has beaten them by a combined score of 178-30 in their last four meetings.

It’s not impossible.

Dumber things have happened.

I’m just not sure we’ll see anything dumber than what we saw Saturday.

(Photo: Samuel Lewis / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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