Miami found itself in a dogfight with Georgia Tech last night, but appeared to have things in hand when they melted the clock to 40 seconds on a 3rd-and-10 and simply had to kneel down in order to preserve victory. The Yellowjackets, undoubtably with some disbelief and without any timeouts, watched the Hurricanes instead line up and hand the ball off for reasons beyond comprehension. And yep, you all know what happened next. There was a fumble, a defensive recovery, and then a game-winning touchdown going the other way in front of stunned and righteously angry fans at Hard Rock Stadium.
"Not going to make an excuse for it, say we should've done this or that," Miami coach Mario Cristobal said after the game. "That's it. We should've done it. Sometimes you get carried away with just, finish the game and run it. I should've stepped in and said, 'Hey, just take a knee.'"
So he understands what he did wrong and won't do it again. That has to be little solace to Hurricanes fans who were thinking maybe, just maybe, this was the year they could break through and make the College Football Playoff. A loss like this is going to sting for a long time and make that endeavor much harder.
It's pretty wild that we see these situations crop up every few years even though 90 percent of coaches grew up playing video games and learning the value of simply setting the controller down instead of risking some sort of CPU injustice.
This article was originally published on thebiglead as Miami Ran the Ball Instead of Kneeling and It Led to Complete Disaster.
