Examining how Mario Cristobal's philosophy led to loss against Georgia Tech

Mario Cristobal made a very costly call that came to haunt Miami in their brutal, 23-20 loss to Georgia Tech. As CaneSport’s Gary Ferman saw it, though, this was nothing new from Cristobal when it comes to his philosophy as a head coach.

Ferman explained his point during an appearance on ‘Andy Staples On3’ on Sunday. He started by saying that he’s sure that the entire offensive staff, Cristobal included, spent the rest of their weekend afterward looking themselves in the mirror for going about it the way that they did.

“Knowing Mario, he’ll just go back to work,” said Ferman. “I’m sure he was at the office at about 4 a.m. on Sunday morning.”

“But, yeah, it was just a very strange sequence,” Ferman continued. “You have to believe that the subject of taking a knee came up somewhere on the sideline between the offensive coordinator in Shannon Dawson, the offensive staff, Mario.”

Again, though, Ferman believes this is a hill that Cristobal currently just seems willing to die on. Rather than kneel at the end of the game, he wants to use the extra downs to give his team extra reps. He wants to utilize that time, regardless of the off chance that it goes wrong or how people will react to a disaster like the one they experienced against the Yellow Jackets.

“I will say this – As I’ve watched Mario Cristobal through the years — he is not a guy that believes in taking a knee. You could see that he believes in playing the football game to the final whistle. Coaching his guys, maximizing every rep, taking every opportunity to get his football team better,” said Ferman. “I’m guessing, if he told Shannon Dawson to run the football, it was with these next four or five weeks of the season in mind when they’re going to be in some tough football games and they’re going to have to play all four quarters. That’s the only rationale that I can come up with because, from a football sense, it just makes no sense.”

“Mario is one of the more stubborn people that you’ll ever meet in your life. But I don’t think he’s this stubborn. This has been a career-changing moment for him,” Ferman noted. “Let’s be honest – fair or unfair, however you want to classify it — he’s getting undressed all over the country in every form of media over what happened in that game.”

Those in Coral Gables couldn’t have been too pleased with how Miami’s first loss of the season came. Cristobal’s approach, as well-intentioned as it may be overall, put a critical mark in their loss column. Ferman says it could get even worse too depending on how they respond to it in the coming week and the next few games on their schedule.

“Look at the ramifications. You’re talking about having his 5-7 Miami team from a year ago in a position to be 5-0 going into a primetime, nationally televised game at North Carolina next weekend – one of the top handful of games in the college football spectrum next week,” explained Ferman. “This was devastating, this is not something you recover from.”

“They talk about a 24-hour rule? There’s no 24-hour rule at Miami. They may pretend there is, they got a big game next week. This is not something you recover from in a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month,” Ferman said. “This is going to linger with Mario Cristobal for a very long time.”