Everything Mario Cristobal said after Miami blows perfect season vs. Georgia Tech

The Miami Hurricanes squandered a prime opportunity to continue their uniquely impressive perfect season in Week 11, suffering a crushing loss at Georgia Tech.

Miami's 28-23 defeat to the Yellow Jackets marked their first of the 2024 campaign. Albeit not the result the Canes were looking for, their ultimate goals of winning the ACC and making the College Football Playoff are within reach.

Regardless, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal would've liked to and presumably expected a better performance from his squad against an inferior opponent. He didn't shy away from this during his postgame press conference, though he also praised Georgia Tech for outdueling them.

Everything Mario Cristobal said after Miami blows perfect season vs. Georgia Tech

Cristobal cited the disparity in third down conversion rate between Miami and Georgia as one of the main differences from the game. The former went 3-of-10 in such situations, while the latter was 9-of-14.

"I think they did a good job playing coverage with some of our stuff," Cristobal told reporters (h/t Christopher Stock of 247 Sports). He believes Miami "failed at some routine plays," which "falls on coaches and players equally."

Moreover, Cristobal noted the Canes' inability to stop the run as another costly factor that led to them getting shockingly upset. On a day when the Yellow Jackets lost their top two running backs to injury, they gashed Miami for 271 rushing yards. Georgia Tech moved the ball through the ground at will, demonstrated by their 5.6 yards per attempt.

"They did what they do," Cristobal stated. "They run a counter. They run a power sweep. They run some split zone or whatnot. They run some wide zone. They got the ball off the edge several times, and not only on sweep -- sometimes on outside zone. Some of it was bust, some of it was just playing really good."

Regardless of what went wrong for Miami versus Georgia Tech, Cristobal has confidence in his team to bounce back. However, he knows it'll take a collective buy-in from every member of the locker room.

"This loss needs to hurt everybody really badly," Cristobal voiced. "All of us in our gut, in our heart, in our gut, every ounce of our soul, it needs to hurt us ... That's the DNA of the program and that is what we trust and believe in. And we trust and believe in each other, so that's why we're going to get it done."