There is bad coaching, and then there is whatever Mario Cristobal did to cost his Miami Hurricanes the game vs. the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday night. Miami had not suffered a defeat up to that point, but Cristobal somehow managed to snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory again. The play in question was all about taking a knee, instead of running the football for one more play.
Instead of being able to sit on it, milk the clock and secure an ACC victory, Cristobal had the audacity to carry the ball on one more occasion when his team never had to. Fate would have it that Miami fumbled on said play, resulting in one more possession for Brent Key's Jackets inside of a minute left. Georgia Tech matriculated the ball down the field, boys, enough to rock the Hurricanes in Week 6.
As far as how ESPN's Paul Finebaum handled Mario's Miami meltdown, he nearly went nuclear on his own during his weekly appearance on The Matt Barrie Show on Sunday morning. Finebaum erupted.
"It will transcend sports, the stupidity of Mario Cristobal. People are going to be talking about that. There are very few times in our industry when you see something so bone-headed and moronic as what we saw from Miami and [Cristobal]. And it pains me to say that because I actually keep in touch with Mario all the time — but that doesn't matter. We would be a derelict in our job by not calling him out as he was in his job. I had a coach text me this morning saying, 'Have you ever seen a more egregious of a display of coaching malpractice as that?' The answer is no."
Here is the entire episode of The Matt Barrie Show in which Finebaum absolutely ethered Cristobal.
Obviously, there is a lot to unpack here, but we are going to try the best we can to make sense of this.
Paul Finebaum completely ripped Mario Cristobal to shreds over awful call
Yes, Finebaum pretty much called Cristobal a bone-head and a moronic while citing that he committed coaching malpractice in defeat. It may be a tad much, but he is not wrong in the slightest either. If Miami wants to get back to being The U, then the Hurricanes need to beat teams like Georgia Tech it should be better than, or at least not hand the improving Jackets over a shameless victory.
The one thing I keep going back to is this. Both Cristobal and Key are former offensive lineman back leading the way at their alma maters. They also worked under Nick Saban at times in their coaching careers. For Cristobal, his time with Saban came after it went to hell in a hand basket for him at Florida International. As for Key, he was in Tuscaloosa before coming back home to go work for Geoff Collins.
Miami is not recruiting at an A-plus level, but when has that ever been the case at a place like Georgia Tech, where academics largely make it difficult to get top athletes enrolled and on track to graduate? Clearly, Key is able to get more out of less talent than Cristobal. It is why Key will have the Jackets bowling this season, and more than certainly capable of stunning another ACC team in the top 25.
Just when everybody was off the scent, Cristobal found a way to have us all questioning his talents.
