ACC referee FROM ATLANTA did the review of that play. Why would the ACC send a crew from Atlanta for the Ga Tech game in Miami?
Any Guesses?
What I never understood is how it was even possible to miss that call on the review? I could tell Chaney was down in real time as it happened. How could the ref have missed that with the luxury of replay?
Ultimately this is all on Meathead Mario for not kneeling and getting out of there while the getting was good. We all saw that game. Didn't anyone else notice the feel of the game? It just felt like something bad was lurking around every corner from the refs to some potentially freaky play. It was one of those games that feels like everything will blow up and go against you. When we got those first downs and made it academic when the clock went under 2 minutes I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were lucky to have the opportunity to get out of there and frankly I was a nervous wreck.
Then when we didn't line up in victory formation and kept handing the ball off I was screaming "What the Fack are we doing?????" "Why aren't we kneeling????" Then the play happened. When I saw Chaney get stripped I knew that he was already down but immediately I knew the refs would call it a fumble and I also knew in my gut that somehow it would not be overturned. Then of course I try to rationalize in my mind that they are still 74 yards away with 26 seconds and no timeouts but even then I just knew that this was what my gut had been warning me about while I was yelling to kneel. I knew they were going to score I just knew it. After King threw it away under pressure leaving 22 seconds I'm thinking hey just keep everything in front of you but no! Couch has to go for a pick and gives up a 30 yard completion(symptom of being an undisciplined and dumb football team). Next play they are still at our 46 with about 12 seconds to play. Ok just keep everything in front of you and at worst they get a FG attempt but it would be a miracle. King snaps the ball and rolls right and lofts one in the air to a wide open Leary for a TD. How? How does Leary get wide open when all we have to do is protect the end zone? He gets wide open because rather than protect the end zone and tackle the receiver in the field of play to end the game, Kam Kinchens just decides that he is going to jump the top of Leary's route. With all of the above on the line and Georgia Tech needing a miracle if our DBs just play basic fundamental football Kam Kinchens jumps the top of the route because the gamble to look like a hero was more important to him. I love Kam as much as anyone but that play was so egregiously beyond the pale and just over the top selfish, foolish, reckless and inexcusable that as a coach I probably bench him not just for the next game but for multiple games. As much as that would hurt me as a coach a message must be sent to the entire team that something like that is inexcusable.
But Cristobal couldn't do that. Know why? Because he lost the right to do it the very second he decided not to go into victory formation. Because the decision Bozo the Cristomoron made was literally one of the most moronic things I've ever seen in football. What makes it even worse is that the sick feeling that I alluded to earlier that I felt on our last possession after we got the last first down before the phantom fumble was one the entire stadium could feel in their gut. Anyone with any type of stake in Miami winning that game would have gone to victory formation and gotten the heck out of dodge and then thanked the Lord above for allowing us to escape with a win but not Meathead Mario.
@Cribby made an excellent point in another post. He said that Mario cares more about making a point than getting a first down or scoring and he is absolutely right! Not only does Meathead have zero feel for the game, we didn't go into victory formation because Tuff and Fizicul! He cared more about making some stupid meathead statement than making sure we got out of there with a win. So that one decision by Meathead Mario not only took the air out of the season and the locker room. It most definitely created a spotlight on his idiotic decision making but more than that, it most likely created a ton of resentment for him in the locker room. So no, Meathead couldn't discipline Kam. He does that he probably loses the locker room for certain as weird as that sounds.
One could argue that it would have meant one more W in the win column and nothing more but things like that don't just happen in a vacuum, they have real consequences especially in a coach/team dynamic. That decision had a disastrous effect on the season. Sorry to drag everyone through that again but I started writing and I just couldn't stop.