CORAL GABLES — The improbable end to the Georgia Tech-Miami game on Saturday sent shockwaves around the college football world.

The Hurricanes’ decision to run the ball instead of kneeling to run out the clock cost them the game, and UM coach Mario Cristobal has drawn the ire of national pundits. On his Monday morning radio interview on WQAM, Cristobal said running the ball was the incorrect choice.

“There’s no way to rationalize it,” Cristobal said. “It’s the wrong decision. Should’ve kneeled it.”

At his news conference Monday afternoon, Cristobal took the blame for the decision to run the ball, though offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said he called the running play.

“I made the wrong call,” Cristobal said. “I take full ownership in not taking a knee and giving them the opportunity to have a couple of extra plays and preventing us from sealing the win.”

When asked about the context, how the situation worked and whether Dawson or other coaches were “in his ear,” Cristobal said the team “has a process” that was followed.

“I’m not going to sit here and go through the process with you guys,” Dawson said. “What’s said on the headsets is between us, and ultimately, I called the play and I can live with it. It was the wrong thing to do.”

Don Chaney Jr., a veteran running back who has missed most of the last two seasons with injuries, lost the ball on UM’s final offensive play. Replays appeared to show his elbow hitting the ground before the ball came loose, but the play stood when it was reviewed as there was no clear video evidence to overturn the call on the field. Cristobal said his message to Chaney was about moving on to focus on Miami’s next game.

Cristobal said the team has reached out to the Atlantic Coast Conference for clarity on the replay review.

“We have not received any clarity of when his elbow was down, and it was called a fumble,” Cristobal said. “We have (asked). I think that does run its course. We have not received anything on that and some of the other questions that we had that we felt were critical factors in that game.”

Cristobal said the team’s staff goes over late-game situations consistently.

“This entire program is based and founded on accountability,” Cristobal said. “We gave ourselves a chance to win and just got to make that decision to take a knee. That’s it.”

The second-year UM coach said the message to the team after the loss was to understand that the season does not end after the devastating loss. He said it is important “not to point fingers at anybody. There were (a lot of) ways to win that game, and a few ways to lose it. Bottom line is just got to do better.” He said he talked to the team “openly and honestly.”

“(You talk to players) with truth, with respect, with some honesty,” Cristobal said. “You spend time with people you need to spend time with, and you also make sure we understand this thing don’t stop.”

The game did not end with the fumble. Miami’s defense, which performed well on Saturday, surrendered the yards on two long passes that resulted in the game-winning touchdown.

“I told any player that fumbled the ball, anybody that was on the field at that time, I just told them to take it off them,” Cristobal said. “I just could’ve made it easier and kneeled it. I don’t want to point at players.”

Defensive coordinator Lance Guidry said he wished he had called for more pressure on Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King.

“You always have the guys ready until it’s over with. You don’t want to celebrate,” Guidry said. “That’s just coach-talk, which you always do. You’re always talking to the kid until the horn blows, and the play’s blown dead. You’ve got to be ready.

“Went out there just in base defense, nickel defense, and I knew that they needed a field goal and a touchdown to win. So you can’t get too soft, so we played regular coverage. We rushed a little bit, got an incompletion on the first one. The second one, I actually thought (Te’Cory Couch) was going to pick. And then we had 15 seconds left. I was going through my mind. I really wanted to pressure him was what I really wanted to do because he really had two plays. If he throws an out route or anything like that, they can line up and kick a field goal. Went up running just regular coverage, and we got some movement on them and he moved out of the pocket. … and the receiver broke off the route. Hindsight, as a coach, you’re always trying to (think) what could I have done. I really should have pressured him.”

As a program, Miami kept progressing Sunday. The Hurricanes got positive news when top-100 wide receiver Ny Carr committed Sunday evening.

“This is, like any other business in the world, it doesn’t stop,” Cristobal said. “You don’t stop. You don’t ball up. You don’t crawl into a hole. You don’t shell up. You’ve got to do this the right way. You’ve got to have the guts to, regardless of the outcome of a game, a performance, just still ‘bow up and go do your job, knowing that all that matters is the very next play, the very next minute, the very next part of the process.”

Cristobal said although the loss was “agonizing,” he thinks the program has the right people to bounce back going forward.

“If you don’t have people that are resilient and tough enough to deal with when things — even when it’s self-induced — if you don’t have people that are tough enough to do it, you’ve got the wrong people,” Cristobal said. “We’ve got the right people in the building. It sucks. It hurts. It’s absolutely agonizing. You know what? Get your a– up and go to work.”

“Any time you lose a game — you know, I played here — it’s agonizing. Whenever you lose a game,” Cristobal added during his news conference. “But that’s all right. To do this job and to do what we do, you have to be a really, really tough person, and that’s what you have in this building 24/7. And not just myself. The people: talking about the players, talking about the coaches. That is a given in terms of the DNA necessary to be a Miami Hurricane.”

The Hurricanes’ schedule only gets tougher this week. They go on the road to face undefeated No. 12 North Carolina on Saturday night.

“The whole entire program is based on truth and honesty and transparency,” Cristobal said. “The challenge and the importance and the opportunity of North Carolina, for us, is awesome. And like any game during the season, you always eliminate noise. Don’t allow any of it to creep in your head when you’re doing well or when things don’t go so well. You emphasize the importance of the details to make sure that games never get put in the hands of an official, and you just put your foot on the gas, and you go.”