Smokin' offense.

Smothering defense.

Could the Canes be back?

It sure seemed that way Thursday night during a joyous University of Miami home opener at Land Shark Stadium. The 20th-ranked Hurricanes slammed their triple-option demons of No. 14 Georgia Tech with a resounding 33-17 victory.

For the first time since 1988 wins against No. 1 Florida State and No. 15 Michigan, Miami has opened with back-to-back victories against ranked opponents. Suddenly, that four-game UM opening stretch deemed by college football experts as impossibly difficult, seems doable -- even winnable.

``Everyone was talking about the schedule being tough,'' said UM safety Randy Phillips. ``But hopefully the country will start noticing we're here to ball. We're fast, we hit hard, and we're going to Blacksburg next.

``We're here to stay.''

This appears to be the most complete UM team in years, stout and confident on both sides of the ball. Next week, UM (2-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) travels to Blacksburg, Va., to face No. 13 Virginia Tech.

After that, the Canes return home to face No. 12 Oklahoma.

UM coach Randy Shannon said the Canes still had kinks to work out, their kicking game being one of them. But Shannon was pleased that his players avoided getting big-headed and distracted after defeating then-No. 18 FSU last week.

``A lot of people patted them on the back for 10 days, and they responded the way I wanted them to,'' Shannon said. ``We didn't have a situation at all where we had to beg and plead for these guys to be focused.''

For the second consecutive week, an ESPN audience of millions witnessed an impressive Miami offense led by accurate and cool-headed sophomore quarterback Jacory Harris.

Harris completed 20 of 25 passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns, spreading his wealth to nine receivers behind a picture-perfect offensive line. He was not sacked.

Leading receiver LaRon Byrd caught five passes for 83 yards and a touchdown.

And this time, the defense shut down the Yellow Jackets' machine-like option attack in front of 45,329 mostly appreciative fans. Last year, in UM's fourth consecutive loss to the Yellow Jackets, Georgia Tech rushed for 472 yards -- the most amount of rushing yards allowed by UM since 1944.

Thursday, the Jackets (2-1, 1-1) rushed for 95 yards and passed for 133.

``We kept on tackling and kept on hitting their running backs,'' linebacker Colin McCarthy said. ``And they felt it. That's what we wanted to do, keep on pounding them so we could wear them out.''

At halftime, ACC Player of the Year Jonathan Dwyer had 7 yards on five carries. He sustained a shoulder injury and didn't return in the second half.

Anthony Allen led the Yellow Jackets with 42 yards and a touchdown on six carries.

Georgia Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt completed 6 of 15 passes and threw one touchdown.

UM fans began their rhythmic cheer of ``Over-rated!'' in the fourth quarter.

Harris took over where he left off in last week's victory against FSU. After the Jackets opened the game with a 32-yard field goal at 8:09 of the first quarter, Harris led UM on a four-play, 75-yard drive that took 1:39 to produce and culminated with Byrd's 40-yard diving touchdown catch.

Harris hit Leonard Hankerson with a 35-yard catch up the middle on the drive.

UM made it 14-3 at 13:33 of the second quarter on a 13-yard pass from Harris to tight end Dedrick Epps.

With 5:45 left in the first half, Matt Bosher kicked a 34-yard field goal to put UM ahead 17-3. Bosher later missed fourth-quarter field goals of 31 (wide right) and 26 (wide right) yards.

Tailback Javarris James (72 yards on 14 carries) made it 24-3 on a 3-yard scamper early in the third quarter.

Then, 6-8, 260-pound senior power forward -- make that tight end -- Jimmy Graham got into the act with his first career touchdown with 3:08 left in the third quarter. An open Graham, who was a dominant defender for the UM basketball team, caught the ball just before the goal line and dived into the end zone to make it 31-10.

A team safety with 32 seconds left in the third quarter put UM ahead 33-10.

Tech finally got a big-play touchdown with Nesbitt's 56-yard pass to Demaryius Thomas in the final quarter. But by then it was too late.

``It was a tough game,'' Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. ``We pretty much got beat in every facet of the game. We could never get them off the field.''