Kevin Steele is one of the most accomplished assistant coaches of his era, but his forgettable 45-game tenure as Baylor's head coach is remembered for one of the greatest coaching blunders of all time. On Sept. 11, 1999, Baylor led UNLV 24-21 with the ball on UNLV's 8-yard line and less than 20 seconds to play. UNLV was out of timeouts. Rather that take a knee and end the game, Baylor gave the ball to running back Darrel Bush who, while striving for the end zone, fumbled the ball, and UNLV ran it back 99 yards for the game-winning (or game-losing) touchdown.
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal clearly wasn't aware of that cautionary tale. His blunder on Saturday night wasn't quite that bad, but it was close.
Leading 20-17 with 40 seconds to play and Georgia Tech out of timeouts, Miami bypassed what would have been a game-sealing kneel down to hand the ball to Donald Chaney, Jr.
Even if you didn't see the game, you know the story by now, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this article: Chaney fumbled, and Georgia Tech recovered.
this is one of the dumbest coaching blunders in football history. the game was literally over. take a fucking knee pic.twitter.com/XtwdcdB1xK
— alex (@highlightheaven) October 8, 2023
The Yellow Jackets then went 74 yards in four plays, hitting a 44-yard hail mary with one second to play to notch the winning score, 23-20.
Orlando’s own 😎@ChristianLeary4 called game
— Georgia Tech Football (@GeorgiaTechFB) October 8, 2023
📺 @accnetwork pic.twitter.com/sj1LyCfRbf
“We were moving the pile and we had a pretty good drive going,” Cristobal said. “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.’”
In Cristobal's defense(?), he simply does not kneel out games.
So the Miami thing actually gets stupider, if you can believe it. Cristobal just doesn’t take a knee at the end of games. He hasn’t all year. I don’t understand it. I’m not sure anyone would understand it. But it’s his thing. pic.twitter.com/A7Hulb92gv
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) October 8, 2023
However, none of those games were 1-score affairs. Even if the opponent scoops and scores, Miami still wins the game.
Saturday night was not even the first time a Cristobal-coached team has lost a game to a catastrophic and totally unnecessary fumble.
In 2018, his 20th-ranked Oregon Ducks led No. 7 Stanford 31-28 with 53 seconds to play and the ball at the Stanford 43. Two knees and a punt would have required Stanford to move the length of the field with no timeouts to tie or win the game, but running back CJ Verdell fumbled, Stanford recovered, and the Cardinal ultimately won the game in overtime.
The memory of that game could have left a useful scar on Cristobal's psyche, but it clearly did not.
“We should have taken a timeout there at the end," he said. "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.”
Saturday night's unnecessary loss could put a self-made ceiling on the Hurricanes' season. Rather than entering mid-October at 5-0, ranked in the AP Top 15, and 1-0 in ACC play, Miami is now 4-0 and 0-1, behind nine other teams in the race for the ACC Championship with No. 14 North Carolina and Clemson waiting in the next two weeks.
If Miami is fortunate enough to knee out either game, here's betting they do.