Two Decades of Miami Hurricanes Disappointment in the ACC

Louisville fans were stumbling off of the field after beating No. 10 Notre Dame to end the ACC’s 30-game skid against the Irish (and establish Louisville as legit), and the Cardinals were the biggest story in college football on Saturday night.

But Miami couldn’t help but grab the spotlight. 

Instead of taking a knee with 33 seconds to go and running out the remainder of the game clock, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal elected to run the ball one more time. And Don Chaney Jr., fighting for extra yards, lost the fumble. 

There’s usually at least some ambiguity when it comes to coaching blunders. You can at least figure out why a coach might have made the decision he did.

ACC Network color analyst Tim Hasselbeck clocked the mistake as it was about to happen. “You’re under 40 seconds. Take a knee. You should not be handing this football off. I don’t know what … Miami is doing.”

Even as the replay booth looked at the fumble, Hasselbeck and Durham could only focus on the decision to run in the first place. 

“But Tim, the point is, this didn’t even have to happen for Miami,” Durham said. 

“They would’ve been snapping the third down play inside 40 seconds, which means you take a knee, and then at that point, you don’t have to take another snap,” Hasselbeck said.

Announcers value their relationships with coaches, who give them all kinds of information that makes their jobs easier. They do not criticize coaching decisions lightly, and when they have to, they temper their critiques. 

“Let me preface this by saying I think Mario Cristobal has done a very good job with this program and this staff,” Hasselbeck said. 

BUT!

“This is an inexcusable mistake. This is a very simple one. This isn’t ‘hey, you’re down two and analytics are now saying go for two’, and all that type of stuff. This is very simple. Other team has no timeouts. There is no reason (for) putting the ball in harm’s way.”

Georgia Tech came into the game at 2-3 after being blown out at home by Bowling Green the week before, had just one first down in the fourth quarter and no timeouts. Quarterback Haynes King was 10 of 21 for 77 yards and two picks, both awful. 

But he would nearly equal that total on his next four attempts, which went for 74 yards – including the game-winning 44-yard touchdown with a second left. 

“Georgia Tech is going to steal one in the thick of the night in south Florida,” Durham said.

Miami taking its first loss of the season at home to a bad Georgia Tech team cannot be overstated. It’s a disaster. The way it happened. The fact that it happened the week before the Canes were traveling to Chapel Hill to face No. 12 UNC in an undefeated showdown of top-20 teams. And the fact that it happened after Miami’s quietest 4-0 start in many years, a start during which they’d given no indication a performance like this was on the horizon. 

Yet, it’s not the first time they’ve been an unpleasant surprise for the ACC. 

From 1985-2003, Miami won 10 or more games 13 times in 19 seasons. It won 11 or more 10 times. The Hurricanes went 46-4 in their last four seasons as a Big East member and finished in the top five of all four postseason AP polls, winning a national championship in 2001 and finishing as the runner-up in 2000 and 2002. 

The team the ACC got instead has lost at least three games every year since joining in 2003. It has won 10 games just once (2017). It has been ranked in the final AP poll just six of 19 seasons. And it won the now-extinct Coastal Division, a Division that was more dangerous than it seemed but easier to win than the Atlantic, exactly once, 

Six times, Miami was the preseason prediction to win the Coastal, and six others they were picked to finish second. They finished fourth or worse three times out of those twelve years.

“The U” built its name and brand through its dominance and a swagger that has only been imitated since, but never duplicated. Not even by Miami itself.

Over the last 20 years, every single time the Hurricanes have even flirted with the notion that the Miami of the past might be back, they have found a way to disappoint. 

The opponent Miami will face next week on the road has beaten them in ACC play more than anyone not named Florida State. The games between the two have been filled with the types of things you’d expect to see from mostly mediocre teams: close games and bad decisions.

Miami had largely taken care of business this season, beating teams thoroughly – even the one ranked team it faced in Texas A&M. Its offense was No. 3 in the country in yards per play entering the Georgia Tech game. Its defense looked improved. 

But Durham summed it up best after the game-winning touchdown:

“Now all of a sudden, Mario Cristobal’s team has watched it slip literally from their fingers here tonight in the final 26 seconds.”