Mack Brown shares reaction to Miami blowing win against Georgia Tech
Miami will be looking to bounce back from their catastrophic blunder late in their last game against Georgia Tech this weekend as they visit Chapel Hill to take on undefeated North Carolina.
Seemingly everyone had an opinion about Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal‘s decision to not take a knee to win their last game with 37 seconds remaining, which allowed the Yellow Jackets to come from behind and pull off the upset win. And ahead of the Tar Heels matchup with Miami, North Carolina head coach Mack Brown was asked for his take on the situation.
“It’s a really interesting question because you’re sitting there saying do I want them to win or lose, what’s best for us?” Brown asked. “And I don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter, because if they won they were going to come play hard and if they lost they were going to come play hard.”
Brown was mostly concerned with how Miami’s game would impact their showdown with the Hurricanes this weekend. But Brown also wanted to highlight the effort of Georgia Tech, which was largely overlooked due to the magnitude of the Hurricanes’ late-game mistake.
“What I thought is Georgia Tech’s pretty good, so that’s something we can use in four weeks. And the other thing, it’s the mind games of sports and life, but you’re sitting there looking at it, nobody thought Georgia Tech could win. About the time you think something can’t happen it does, I thought that was us against Georgia Tech last year,” Brown said.
There’s no question that Miami running back Don Chaney fumbling the ball when the Hurricanes could have taken a knee to win the game stands out most. But Georgia Tech not only recovering that fumble, but driving 74 yards down the field in 24 seconds to pull out the win was impressive.
“So give Brent Key credit, give Georgia Tech credit, quarterback’s better, they’re running the ball good, they got a great, young wide receiver,” Brown said. “Quarterback made plays to win the game at the end. So that’s what I got out of it, is that we’ve won two of the last 12 in Atlanta and they got a good team.”
Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King found Christian Leary on a 44-yard touchdown pass that served as the game-winner, fully capitalizing on Miami’s mistake. But Brown believes it will not impact Miami’s performance on Saturday when they square off at 7:30 p.m. ET in a primetime matchup airing on ABC.
“So that’s what hit me, because Miami’s gonna play the same way either way. They were gonna come here and play hard regardless. The only thing, they would’ve been rated 15th instead of 25th, and that might’ve been a little more hype. But other than that, that’s not gonna change the outcome of this game,” Brown concluded.