OT: Miami's Mario Cristobal Makes the Worst Coaching Error in History

Probably not fully aware. 

That's exactly the play/game that popped in my head. I forgot that Steele is still around. At the time, he tried to excuse it away as "preaching toughness" or something like that. I'm surprised he lasted 4 years at 1-31 in B1g 12 and 9-36 overall.

I have no idea why Un-Super Mario even called that play. Even if somehow you leave a few seconds on the clock going into 4th down, Saban showed you how to kill a few seconds off the clock. I also forgot until someone here reminded me of the botched clock management at the end of the Stanford game, including having your star DE kicked out for targeting and missing the 1st half of the next game.

Lousy clock management - I mean CONSISTENTLY bad - is a sign of a coach over his head. Hoke had some moments like this at UM (end of 2013 PSU game, getting called for delay of game when he had timeouts). 

As for the 2015 MSU game, I remember at the time thinking he should rush out his offense onto the field and see if Sparty had its punt block team on the field. That is what Lloyd did to salt away the game vs. ND in 1997. Either way, what happened was a sick blooper. In the end, Bama beat MSU 38-0 and started their slide into oblivion, minus 2021. 

Seriously: how the hell does this happen to the SAME GUY TWICE?

Pretty obvious - he's one of the only idiots to put themselves in a position for it to happen to (not taking a knee).

If you're coming from little to no wealth and you get offered a significant amount of money at 17 years old, that is hard to turn down. A lot of things can happen in three years of college football, including severe injuries, coaching changes, and other turns of happenstance beyond your control that can have a substantial effect on your professional prospects.

I just can't blame a kid for making the decision to take the money now. It's a gamble either way.

They changed the rule in the NFL after that play. Used to be nothing stopping teams from taking a free shot at the QB - it was considered (by some) to be an insult to kneel.

Csonka wanted them to kneel anyway. Psarcik wasn't ready for the snap, bobbled it a bit, and for whatever reason, Csonka was headed into the line at full speed like he would for an ordinary run play. Psarcik winged it off his hip and Edwards got the lucky bounce.

So, yeah, 45 years since pretty much everyone figured this out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7-komLkBsI

Nice call back - classic old style chiron and everyone wearing huge shoulder pads.

I watched this happen on live t.v. (I was..11 years old, maybe?) and became a Giant fan as a result. This was around the time when I started to understand the game (thanks to my dad) and was looking for a pro team to root for. I figured the G-Men could never sink that low again, and the only path for them was up after that kind of low. They'd played in Yankee Stadium forever before Giants Stadium opened in the late 70s, and I'd been a Yankee fan since '73. But the Giants had been garbage since the 50s at that point. The Jets had won a Super Bowl and even the Bills had O.J. Simpson breaking the the rushing record. Larry Csonka was a hasbeen and "Off-Broadway" Joe Pisarcik was a never was. Pretty sure they hired Parcells shortly after.

I have no interest in becoming a Miami fan, btw.

Oh, that doesn’t surprise me.

What surprises me is that they will not identify their own weakness and then hire someone to manage that aspect for them.  Heck, they could probably appoint the scout team quarterback to make game theory calls — because I bet the scout team quarterback is a Madden Kid™.

Football is a game populated largely by stupid people.

Our punter didn't have time to scramble for a bit.

But punting in that spot was the right play; there were still 10 seconds to go on the clock and it was 4th down.  This was 3rd down with 40 seconds to spend at the GT 30.  Had he just kneeled the ball they either force GT to burn their final TO or they run the clock down to a couple of seconds left.  Running the ball in that spot makes little sense.

But then even worse his defense gave up two huge completions by a bad GT passing game.  The first completion had 5 Miami guys around the one receiver and he still got it.  The second was a massive bust by a defense that let one of two receivers get behind them in that side.  

Harbaugh deserves some blame, I guess, for O'Neill fumbling that ball (though the center was also fouled on the play) but that was a singular mistake.  This was incompetence by Mario at multiple times during the last 40 seconds of the game.

Trouble with the snap was the most egregious instance of roughing the snapper. The same boobs (led by John O'Neill) who didn't call that also decided that Joe Bolden getting pushed into someone was targeting. 

maybe harbaugh made a tactical mistake, although i don’t know that i’ve ever seen a legitimate alternative. “hey, go run around for ten seconds” may or may not work, and there’s probably as much chance that sparty gets a short field with a chance at a hail mary as there is that the punt goes sideways.

i don’t know, man. sometimes you just get got.

UK maybe gets 7 wins this year and loses to rival Louisville to close the season. Miami (YTM) is likely to go into a tailspin now and can't fire Gattus this time as an excuse. Van Dyke threw 3 picks vs a team that gave up 38 at home to BGSU. The NILs will dry up when fans see 7 or 8 wins and very few program-defining wins. UK was always a hoops school and YTM is better at hoops than they are at football lately.