Miami survived Virginia Tech in a backyard brawl Friday night at HardRock and the only thing more surprising than the Hokies’ fighting spirit was the fact a lengthy review actually went the Hurricanes’ way.
All conversation will be around what the critics and pundits labeled a “controversial” finish—selective outrage as these same college football fans couldn’t have cared less about an early Cam Ward fumble that should’ve been called an incompletion as his knee was down.
Same to be said for a phantom hold that took a Jacolby George touchdown off the board in the second quarter—Miami looking to go ahead 21-7, before the score was wiped out and Ward threw an interception on the next play.
These same officials who couldn’t figure out an end zone Hail Mary call in real time also missed Virginia Tech running out two players in No. 17 jerseys on a lengthy field goal just before halftime—but when a review goes Miami’s way with the game on the line, all hell breaks loose amongst rivals and casual observers who tuned in with the hopes that the seventh-ranked Hurricanes get taken out.
Understandable in the sense that if you’re not all about ‘The U’ this Ward-to-Miami feel-good story has to be nauseating as it’s been so over-the-top this past month, before the Canes have gotten into the teeth of this season—but again, welcome to how the sports media’s hype machine works.
These pro-Ward comments and sentiments aren’t coming for the University of Miami’s athletic department or some boutique Coral Gables PR firm; it’s the national media who always bangs the drum that the Hurricanes are “back” and it’s simpleton ESPN commentators who spend entire broadcasts gushing over the transfer quarterback’s play and talking-up a December trip to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony, while it’s still September.
There are no award campaigns coming out of UM’s athletic department, either—no hyping any individual player as the entire mantra of this thing is team-related and togetherness as Miami works to claw its way back to relevance one game at a time—but why let truth get in the way of some basic sports media propaganda for the sake of clicks, engagement and shares.
Over-prop the Hurricanes up after a few early season victories, watch rival fans and haters seethe online as Miami keeps rolling … and then just as quickly tear “The U” down when a loss finally takes place.
Lather, rinse, repeat—the same tired narrative every season—but it works and is good business as the Hurricanes remain a polarizing program both loved or hated; hence why ESPN’s College GameDay is taking its road show to Berkeley next weekend for Miami to host unranked Cal in the Bears’ first season in the ACC.
This is also why this team—and fan base—have to ignore all outside noise and just forge ahead.
The ending of this game is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, aside form the fact Miami notched its first conference win in a season the aspire to finally win their first ACC Championship in two decades since defecting from the Big East.
5-0 and riding a win-streak, opposed to 4-1, licking wounds and needing to figure out how to regroup.
Equally as important as this season forges on; figuring out just what in the hell went wrong on Friday night, as Virginia Tech came in and pushed Miami’s defense around—while the usually-stout Hurricanes’ offensive line wasn’t up to snuff.
Ward had some issues; the early sketchy fumble as well as a Hokies’ safety baiting him on a throw to Xavier Restrepo that wound up and interception—as well as another pass behind his gifted receiver, that was tipped and picked—twice leaving important points on the field in a game that came down to a final play.
Of course with all of that, the transfer quarterback still went for 343 yards, threw for four touchdowns and ran one in—while his signature gamer plays were again on display.
That same attempt to make something out of nothing when hit with the opening drive third down fumble; it’s the same mojo that allowed Ward to scramble for his life—dishing it off to tight end Riley Williams for a 26-yard gain, setting up the one-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Horton—the Canes taking their first lead since early second quarter.
Of course even with all that magic, Miami still almost let this thing slip away—dinking, dunking and getting this thing to the Canes 30-yard line where Kyron Drones was even in position to launch it to Da’Quan Felton as time expired—the Hurricanes also bailed out by Hokies’ head coach Brent Pry and some brutal mismanagement of the clock; letting over a minute bleed out instead of using one of his two timeouts.
Over the past few years there’s been a sentiment that winning cures all while losses exposes wounds—which is apropos for a mistake-prone program averaging 7-5 over the past almost-two decades—but for a squad looking to play championship-caliber football; one who aspires to take the conference, to reach the playoffs and to chase rings, winning no longer cures all as ugly victories now must be dissected in order to grow up fast.
Wins like this aren’t be over-celebrated; they need to feel like a loss because the Canes overall play against the Hokies on Friday night will absolutely result in some losses down the stretch if the mistakes aren’t cleaned up.
Virginia Tech out-toughed Miami, which is unacceptable a decade after Frank Beamer and the Bud Foster ‘lunchpail’ brand of Hokies football was put out the pasture.
As much as ESPN’s commentators wanted to talk up Virginia Tech’s “toughness” being their signature, this is a program that had completely lost its identity post Beamer and Foster—going 34-40 the past six seasons, while Pry is now 12-17 since taking over for the failed Justin Fuente in 2022, slipping to 1-9 in one-score games after this loss.
These wounded-bird Hokies rolled into HardRock with a 2-2 record, which combined with the Canes exciting path to 4-0—this game blindsided everybody on paper; even the bookies who set the line at -17.5, expecting Miami to keep rolling while another Virginia Tech disaster season was underway.
A deeper dive into that record shows the Hokies were victims of two slow starts—down 17-0 fast against Vanderbilt and 14-0 last weekend against the same Rutgers team who just took out Washington while this game was taking place in South Florida.
A few pedestrian wins over Marshall and Old Dominion in between, but the narrative around this Hokies squad should’ve been the fight shown in pushing the Commodores into overtime, as well as outscoring the Scarlet Knights 23-12 and losing by a field goal after falling into that hole.
Translation; these wounded birds weren’t heading south looking for a moral victory in playing Miami tough—Virginia Tech was there for the upset and to jumpstart their season, expecting the Hurricanes to underestimate them.
And why not? Miami put all its off-season prep into a massive season opener against Florida at ‘The Swamp’, before a few home scrimmages against Florida A&M and Ball State—setting a road trip to South Florida up as the proverbial ‘trap game’—before kicking off ACC season on a Friday night against a Virginia Tech team that hadn’t done much the last couple of years.
Of course lost in that, the fact these Hokies returned 20 starts to their roster and the personal meaning this one took for Drones, as his cousin Ward has become the media darling and face of college football early in this season.
This was most-certainly the trap game that the pundits thought South Florida would be—expecting the energy of that old Big East rivalry to have Miami on high alert against Virginia Tech—but instead, the Canes were sleepwalking early and a few quirky plays were the difference between a late second quarter 21-7 lead and the first halftime deficit of the season, trailing 24-17.
Of greater concern, Miami’s previously stout run defense was shredded for 206 yards—courtesy of defenders being out of position and the kind of half-ass arm tackling that should have Cristobal and defensive coordinator Lance Guidry putting that unit through a hellish week before departing for Cal later this week.
On the offensive side of the ball, coordinator Shannon Dawson and line coach Alex Mirabal have their work cut out as well, as the ground attack looked as inconsistent on Friday night as it did much of last year—no true commitment to the run until early in the third quarter—after going into this season with mindset to wear defenses down by pounding the rock.
Miami ended up with 165 yards on the ground, but Damien Martinez going for 60 yards on 14 carries with Mark Fletcher held to 22 on five carries—hardly a recipe for success; Ward scrambling for 57 yards on the night while Chris Johnson took it 24 yards on his one carry.
Conversely, the Hokies used Tuten as their workhorse and he pounded the Canes for 141 yards—including a 55-yarder for a score early second quarter, two plays after the Ward interception and the George touchdown was called back on the phantom hold.
Miami won a game that it almost gave away Georgia Tech-style after a monster comeback—which was also the case for last year’s upset at the hands of the Yellow Jackets; a loss defined by Cristobal not taking a knee, when in reality the game was lost countless different ways before that debacle.
Much like that showdown, Miami saw a touchdown called back on a phantom block—a Henry Parrish rushing touchdown last year and a toe-tapping grab from George against the Hokies—and on subsequent plays, saw a Hurricanes quarterback tossing an interception on the next play; Tyler Van Dyke with a boneheaded double-coverage throw into the end zone, while Ward was baited by a safety when believing Restrepo was open.
A lower-scoring affair, Miami trailed Georgia Tech 17-10 until about the ten-minute mark—Parrish refinding the end zone while an Andy Borregales field goal pushed the Canes back ahead, 20-17 with 6:23 remaining—a defensive stand and sustained Hurricanes’ drive with the goal of running out the clock before disaster struck.
Still, Miami turned it over five times in that outing—three interceptions from Van Dyke—creating a game and environment that never should’ve been in position for Georgia Tech to pull off the upset.
Same to be said for Virginia Tech in this showdown; Miami with the questionable Ward fumble, points pulled off the board on the bogus holding call, officials missing two Hokies on the field with the same number for a lengthy field goal—disastrous undertones where the game felt like it was slipping away drive-by-drive—before Ward kicked back into Heisman-mode.
Trailing by ten with 5:41 left in the third quarter, Ward and the Canes kicked off an eight-play, 89-yard touchdown drive—where the quarterback used his legs to scamper in from 17 yards out. The Hokies answered with seven of their own, but Miami was undeterred as Ward led a nine-play, 70-yard drive—a big quarterback rush on third down, as well as a clutch 25-yard hook-up with Sam Brown to keep the drive alive—eventually finding Cam McCormick in the back of the end zone for the six-yard reception.
After getting gashed all night, the Miami defense got a big stand when needed—a three-and-out that took less than a minute—setting up a ten-play, 57-yard drive where Restrepo not only reeled in a fourth down reception on his back, but Ward had the aforementioned going-down pitch to Williams that got the Canes to the one-yard line for the Horton touchdown grab.
Still, back to the winning no longer curing all as the bar has been raised this season, Miami cannot just ignore its inability to stop Virginia Tech—to the point where a reversal on a game-ending jump ball was needed to survive. If the Canes want to be mentioned in the same breaths as other powerhouses chasing conference titles, a playoffs berth and a national championship, then critique here must be harsh in the same of change, improvement and the aspiration of greatness.
Drones dinked and dunked his way to four first downs in nine plays over the next 1:57—a minute’s worth of that pissed away by his head coach’s piss-poor decision making—the feisty Hokies’ quarterback still covering 45 yards of ground and damn-near sticking a dagger in Canes fans’ hearts that hadn’t been felt in four decades; not since Doug Flutie hooked up with Gerald Phelan for the 48-yard, time-expiring touchdown pass that is relived ad nauseam every time Boston College and Miami sync up.
This was a game that Miami easily wins by double-digits if it showed up as focused and prepared for Virginia Tech as it did its last four opponents and instead it was one overturn away from infamy and hearing about Drones-to-Felton until the end of time, as 41-38 would’ve re-defined this rivalry for years to come.
In watching the rest of these weekend games play out, Miami got a taste of big boy football—No. 4 Alabama taking it to No. 2 Georgia in what looked like an early rout; the Crimson Tide up 28-0 before the Bulldogs clawed back and took a 34-33 lead in the final minutes … only to see Bama take it right back 13 seconds later on a 75-yard score.
It was big boy football in every sense of the word and the kind of game that needs to remind Miami what waits for them at the end of this year, should the Canes run unscathed through a rather pedestrian ACC regular season schedule—where it looks like an improved Clemson squad is arguably on their way to claiming their spot in the conference championship.
Survival is obviously necessary; just ask sixth-ranked Ole Miss who had their hands full with a scrappy Kentucky team that took top-ranked Georgia to the wire weeks back. Mark Stoops and his Wildcats defense are always a tough out and after giving the Bulldogs a 13-12 scare weeks back, it was Lane Kiffin and his prolific offense that were shut down in a 20-17 upset; a far cry from the 55 points-per-game the Rebels were putting up agains lesser competition.
No. 12 Michigan barely survived Minnesota, 27-24—the Gophers with a 21-point fourth quarter and then hosed on an onside kick they recovered late—while No. 10 Utah got worked over by fellow Pac-12 defector Arizona in a 23-10 affair.
The era of transitive property is no longer how modern day college football works; team X beats team Y, therefore team Z should have no problem with Y because it beat the brakes off of X weeks prior.
Anybody can now pretty much beat anybody any given week in this sport; just ask Notre Dame, who finally found their offense and held on to knock off No. 15 Louisville, 31-24—weeks after a home upset at the hands of Northern Illinois … who lost in overtime to Buffalo a week later; the same Buffalo that got wrecked by UConn, 47-3 on Saturday night.
The only rhyme and reason that still exists in this sport; a team’s ability to solve its problems in real time and how it course corrects, not letting yesterday’s problems carry over to tomorrow.
Yes, Miami was able to survive Virginia Tech this past Friday night—but not without some collateral damage, being exposed and showing some vulnerabilities—begging the question, how will this staff and these player respond?
Waltzing into Gainesville and beating Florida up and down the field; a monumental task as the Gators were expected to be an improved SEC squad this year—and the Canes followed that up with two clean, dominant and surgical dissections of lesser teams, as expected.
South Florida was the next challenge and Miami’s hang-tough first half turned into a second half blowout, which felt massive in the sense it was the kind of game these Hurricanes are losing over the past decade-plus; crumbling under the adversity—but chinks in the armor have been exposed going into a quirky stretch of football, starting with a road across the country to Cal next weekend, a bye week and then a tough road trip to Louisville mid-October.
Florida State and Duke head south back-to-back weeks, before a road trip to Georgia Tech, senior day at home against Wake Forest and a regular season finale road trip to Syracuse.
The hype machine will be in full force this coming weekend as mentioned—ESPN College GameDay bringing their road show to Berkeley; the first time the four-letter network has ever set up at Cal, as Miami plays it’s first regular season game in The Golden State since taking on UCLA back in 1995—as well as it’s first 7:30 p.m. PT kickoff since facing San Diego State back in 1992.
The Bears rolled to the plains of Auburn the second week of the season and upset the Tigers , 21-14 … only to road-trip it to Tallahassee to lose 14-9 in Florida State’s lone win of the season, which the Seminoles didn’t building on as they just got wrecked 42-16 at SMU this weekend.
Again, make these up and down programs and unexpected game outcomes make sense any given week.
Fernando Mendoza is under center for the Bears; a Miami native who actually played for Columbus, as fate would have it—the former 3-Star quarterback ignored by all Sunshine State programs, outside of Florida International—and choosing Cal over Bryant, Lehigh and Pennsylvania.
No shortage of sub plots or quirky storylines for Miami’s upcoming road trip, but in the end none of that matters. It’s an Xs and Os world and the task at hand for the Hurricanes is moving past surviving the Hokies and cleaning up the mistakes that Virginia Tech exposed.
The goal for this season is “greatness” not “good enough”; massive recruiting efforts and portal moves ensuring this Miami team would win big in 2024, setting a new standard moving forward—and while being on the right side of a Hail Mary booth review feels a hell of a lot better than where things could’ve wound up, that’s still not the takeaway.
Clean up the mistakes, re-find this team’s identity and treat this narrow win with that bounce-back loss kind of energy—bringing to life that old adage of the last team anybody in the nation wanted to play was the University of Miami coming off of a loss.
Cristobal knows his Hurricanes dodged a bullet and that there’s a lot of clean-up needed this week—so get back to work and show up in Berkeley ready to prove the critics wrong, as that will be the energy
Christian Bello has been covering University of Miami athletics since the mid-nineties. Getting his start with CanesTime, he eventually launched allCanesBlog—which led to a featured columnist stint with BleacherReport. He’s since rolled out the unfiltered, ItsAUThing.com where he’ll use his spare time to put decades of U-related knowledge to use for those who care to read. When he’s not writing about ‘The U’, Bello is a storyteller for some exciting brands and individuals—as well as a guitarist and songwriter for his Miami-bred band Company Jones, who released their debut album “The Glow” in 2021. Hit him on Twitter for all things U-related @ItsAUThingBLOG.
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