Paul Finebaum: 'The stupidity of Mario Cristobal will transcend sports'

All he had to do was call a kneel.

Instead, Mario Cristobal elected for Miami to continue pushing the ball forward with under 40 seconds left in a one-score game. The worst case scenario became reality when Donald Chaney Jr. put the ball on the ground for Georgia Tech — who had no timeouts through all of this — to recover.

Yellow Jackets quarterback Haynes King threw a 44-yard touchdown stike to Christian Leary with seconds remaining on the clock, stunning the Hurricanes and putting into question Cristobal’s abilties to manage the clock in close, late-game situations.

Before this play, Miami had a 99.9 percent chance to win the game, per ESPN Analytics. A lot has been made of the decision in the day since, but SEC Network analyst Paul Finebaum blasted Cristobal for it.

“It will transcend sports, the stupidity of Mario Cristobal. People are going to be talking about that,” Finbaum told ESPN’s Matt Barrie on Sunday. “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.”

This wasn’t the first time Cirstobal has done something like this, either. During his tenure at Oregon, Cristobal lost to Stanford at home in similar fashion. Once again, Cristobal elected not to take a kneel and run the clock out. Instead, CJ Verdell fumbled, the Cardinal tied the game with a field goal as time expired and went on to win the game in overtime.

One time could be overlooked, but twice isn’t a coincidence. It’s unsure whether Cristobal has been doing this type of late-game management throughout his career as a play-caller, but gaining a couple extra yards and losing the game isn’t a fair trade off compared to kneeling the ball and winning. And it ruined the ‘Canes perfect start to the season.

As Miami — who somehow has remained in the AP Poll, coming in at No. 25 this week — looks to regroup after the unlikely loss, the Hurricanes will have to move on and turn their attention toward the toughest stretch of their schedule. That begins this Saturday with a road trip to No. 12 North Carolina.