Risky business: UM’s Diaz made perfect call to kick field goal. Did you think so then?
The Miami Hurricanes were trailing 41-34 at North Carolina State on Friday with a bit over six minutes left in the game.
After a series of unfortunate events, Canes coach Manny Diaz was faced with fourth-and-goal from the Wolfpack 5. What to do? Go for the iffy touchdown, tie it up and put yourself squarely back in the game? Or go for the almost sure field goal with enough time to get the ball back and go ahead for good?
A good deal of Canes fans must have been crazed to see Diaz, known for taking chances and being aggressive, suddenly being conservative and going for the three points. Even the ESPN commentators thought he had erred.
On Tuesday morning, here’s exactly how Diaz explained to WQAM radio host Joe Rose how he came to his decision:
“Yeah, so we’re down seven. And when you’re down seven, field goals, generally speaking, have very little value.
Naked bootleg didn’t work
“About six minutes left in the game, we call a naked bootleg and [tight end] Larry Hodges is going to walk in the end zone and the guy is grabbing his shirt. I mean it’s as obvious as day. It’s not called.
“D’Eriq [King] makes kind of a heroic play to get down to the half yard line. Not a person thinks D’Eriq is in the end zone. The referees spot the ball, we go, we walk in the end zone, touchdown, the game is tied.”
Not so fast.
Debatable false start
“The play gets buzzed dead, whatever, so adversity on the Larry Hodges penalty, that’s kind of aggravating. Then, adversity on a touchdown getting called back and then we line up again at the 1-yard line, Cam Harris spins in the end zone, there’s a slight movement by our right tackle [Jarris Williams] — you have to really be looking for it. They call us on a false start and put us back on the 5-yard line.
“What I felt was, that was three really negative things happening to Miami in a row. The issue with the blown call that should have been a touchdown to Hodges, the touchdown taken away and really almost another touchdown taken away.
“Now the ball is getting moved back to the 5-yard line and momentum has kind of started to swing back to North Carolina State. The crowd, the people that were there were kind of getting into it. At that moment I thought, ‘You know what? We had a lot of negative things happen. Let’s end this drive with a positive thing.’
Six minutes is plenty
“With our offense, I think there were six minutes left, to me that’s two possessions for our offense.
“And I felt that any time we got the ball we could score very quickly. And the key, the other part of the decision, we had stopped the run on defense in the second half. I felt very good about us being able to go out there, get stops on defense and get the ball back.
“And if you really look at it, we had another drive on offense that we chose not to score that we could have scored. It’s always fun when they work out in hindsight. We would have gone for it on fourth down but when you get three punches in the gut like that, let’s go find a positive way to end the drive and let’s go win the game the next time we have it and lo and behold that’s what happened.”
UM defense holds
Diaz’s trust in his defense to stop NC State was rewarded with a sack by UM cornerback Te’Cory Couch to force the punt, and UM came right back to score the go-ahead touchdown on the 54-yard beauty from King to Mike Harley.
After cornerback DJ Ivey’s interception on NC State’s next play from scrimmage, it was all but over. With 2:36 left, UM took possession and maintained it until the clock ran out.
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 9:47 AM.
