I think it comes down to coaching, and that worries me.
Despite the defense being near perfect against TAMU, Miami still needed Toure to literally risk his life to save the game. If he doesn’t dislodge that pass, we go to OT and I don’t like our chances. Our defense was completely gassed at the end of the game. Thats not an indictment, so was their defense. But at the end of the game we could have kept them from touching the ball again if Toney goes down at the 1. Would have been nearly zero risk of them driving the field to tie or win the game if Cristobal thinks it through. Thats what NFL teams would do and that’s the kind of team Cristobal has built.
Just after the game I said I didn’t have an issue with Toney scoring there but after rewatching the game a couple more times I think we were unnecessarily playing with fire. Our kicker missed his longer kicks because he was using kentucky windage to adjust his kicks for the gale force winds. He didn’t have an issue with the XP after the TD because it was close enough for the wind not to matter. If you want to play an NFL style game like Cristobal wants, I think you have to be consistent the whole game, including the end of the game . Bleed the clock and trust the kicker to hit what amounts to an XP to win.
TAMU wasnt quite the GT kneel fiasco but boy did it get close. I think we WILL earn a window of opportunity to closeout OSU, I hope Cristobal is able to make the most of it.
And to be fair- it’s entirely possible that in the TAMU game Cristobal’s original plan was to have Toney go down at the 1 and then kick a FG to win but Toney saw the end zone and got too eager. Mario isn’t going to throw Toney under the bus if that was the case. Would be interesting to find out if Toney ran the play as intended or if he was supposed to go down at the 1.