‘I think I just blacked out’: All the best reactions to Canes’ inexplicable loss to Ga. Tech

Mario Cristobal’s explanation was jumbled. Matt Lee swore in disbelief on the sideline. The Miami Hurricanes couldn’t offer up a good reason for why they didn’t kneel the ball in the final 35 seconds of a jaw-dropping, inexplicable 23-20 loss to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday and Brent Key couldn’t, either.

“What did Will Ferrell say in ‘Old School’?” the Georgia Tech coach said. “I think I just blacked out.”

All Miami had to do was kneel the ball one time at the Yellow Jackets’ 30-yard line, with Georgia Tech out of timeouts and the clock ticking all the way down to about 33 seconds by the time Lee snapped the ball back to quarterback Tyler Van Dyke. Instead, the Hurricanes called a real play and gave the ball to running back Donald Chaney Jr., who picked up 4 meaningless yards and then fumbled to Georgia Tech with 26 seconds left at the 26-yard line.

Less than 25 seconds later, the Yellow Jackets were in the end zone after hitting back-to-back throws of 30-plus yard to Georgia Tech wide receivers Malik Rutherford and Christian Leary. The latter got behind the entire defense and hauled in a 44-yard touchdown on his only catch of the game with two seconds left to stun everyone in Miami Gardens.

By then, Van Dyke’s three interceptions, the No. 17 Hurricanes’ fourth-quarter comeback and the 10-point lead Miami (4-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) let slip away in the second half were all but forgotten. The Hurricanes, for all intents and purposes, won the game, except they didn’t call the quarterback kneel they were supposed to.

“We kind of felt that he was going to take a knee at that point,” Key said. “He didn’t, though.”

How exactly the gaffe happened will probably never be properly be explained. Offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson shouldn’t have called a run play. Coach Mario Cristobal should have made sure everyone knew the situation and knew to take a knee. Even Van Dyke probably should have realized where the clock was. Chaney, who topped 100 yards for the first time in his career on the ill-fated final carry, had to hold on to the ball.

No one wanted to blame anyone else at the end of the game.

“At the end of the day, I’ve got to put us in a better situation,” Van Dyke said. “I don’t want to speak on that. We shouldn’t have even had a situation where we had to run the clock out, take a knee.”

After Leary dove into the end zone to give the Yellow Jackets (3-3, 2-1) their unforgettable win, cameras scanned the sidelines and found Lee in disbelief on the bench.

“What the [expletive] are we doing?” the center appeared to say. “What the [expletive] are we doing?”

About every one of the 58,045 inside Hard Rock Stadium were asking some variation of the same question.

“It felt like a movie. We all looked at each other like, Let’s do this,” Leary said. “We just wanted to play to the last take. That’s what we did.”

For Georgia Tech, it was an Oscar-worthy drama. For Miami, it was a horror film and spooky season started early.