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I've been watching college football for close to 60 years and Georgia Tech football for over 50 years, and tonight I saw the dumbest coaching decision ever by Miami coach Mario Cristobal followed by the biggest miracle in the history of Tech football. Miami led Tech 20-17 with 1:18 left and had second down at the Tech 32 when Georgia Tech called its last timeout. In college football, you have 40 seconds to snap the ball, so all Miami had to do to win the game was take a knee twice and run the clock down close to zero each time. Instead, they ran one play for a two-yard gain, and then this happened:



Apparently, Cristobal made a similar blunder when he was coach at Oregon against Stanford. In that game, he could have taken a knee and run the clock down to about 20 seconds before punting it away. Instead, Oregon fumbled, Stanford recovered, kicked a tying field goal and won the game in overtime. That game wasn't quite as bad a blunder since Stanford could have blocked the Oregon punt or run some sort of Hail Mary in the last few seconds.

Alabama tried to do the same thing with us yesterday, but unfortunately, being Alabama, it did not hurt them too much.

Alabama leading by 6. They have the ball and got a first down with 1:44 (104 seconds left). A&M is out of timeouts.

They could take a knee (40 seec), take a knee (40 secs), take a knee (24 secs), game over.

Instead the QB threw an quick pass on 1st down, but incomplete, using 8 seconds. 96 seconds left. They ended up with 4th down and 7 seconds left. They were able to use the full 7 on 4th down with the QB running around a bit and then throwing the ball as high as he could out of bounds.

I would nominate Notre Dame's coach's decision to go for it on 4th and 11 in the 4th quarter while in Notre Dame's own territory (around the 35, IIRC). ND was behind at the time but there was still plenty of time left. ND failed to convert and Louisville took over on downs. They went down and scored a field goal, leading to a 33-20 win for the Cardinals.

earendel wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 09, 2023 5:57 am

I would nominate Notre Dame's coach's decision to go for it on 4th and 11 in the 4th quarter while in Notre Dame's own territory (around the 35, IIRC). ND was behind at the time but there was still plenty of time left. ND failed to convert and Louisville took over on downs. They went down and scored a field goal, leading to a 33-20 win for the Cardinals.

That's the same Notre Dame team that only had ten players on the field a couple of weeks ago when Ohio State scored the winning touchdown in the last seconds against them.