Miami's Hurricanes can beat anybody and everybody left on their schedule. They proved that in Saturday's gut-buster at Dolphin Stadium. They just couldn't beat a North Carolina team that kept coming, and coming and coming until it went ahead to stay at 28-24 in a game to be remembered.

The Tar Heels are underrated. They are bruisers. But UM's young team will turn those bruises into savvy that will take them further this season than anyone -- anyone except the Hurricanes -- imagined before Saturday's slam-banger.

I'm saying this team now mired at 2-2 is going to win, and win big, before it's done. On Saturday, it didn't, but it gave us one of the best games anybody has seen lately in the ball yard the pro Dolphins call home.

True, losing is losing. So UM Coach Randy Shannon's assertion, ''We should have won,'' just wouldn't stick after the Canes blew leads of 14-0 and 24-14 and finally lost on Cameron Sexton's 14-yard touchdown bullet to Brooks Foster with only 46 seconds left.

`NEAR-MIRACLE'

Yet, even in that 46 seconds, Miami created its own little near-miracle. The Canes kept firing, and freshman quarterback Robert Marve almost pulled it off before Carolina safety Trimane Goddard picked him off in the end zone.

So don't count Miami out of any competition the rest of the way. Shannon is growing his kids as fast as it can possibly be done, as harshly as it sometimes comes off.

Meanwhile, too bad only 35,830 true fans showed up for UM's first real game in Dolphin Stadium (can't count Charleston Southern).

The Orange Bowl that gave us all those decades of memories is no more, and maybe it will take a while for the Canes to regain the emotional advantages they derived from that old but lovable dump.

SMALL TURNOUT HURTS

This you know for sure: Whatever emotional resources UM must draw upon cannot be furnished by this small a turnout. It is just a sad fact of Hurricane football, as sad in its own way as Saturday's final score was in its. You can't make people go to the games who don't want to go. That's been tried, and it has failed too many hundreds of times to mention.

So give the Canes an extra hand for creating their own motivation in an off-campus venue. Few major football programs have to do it. Miami is not only doing it, but doing it with a roster larded with freshmen and sophomores.

''We have no choice but to play those guys when they are young,'' Shannon said. ``We have to get them caught up fast, and we will.''

NO ONE SPARED

Shannon is in his second year as coach, the same as Carolina's Butch Davis, the old Canes boss. Shannon makes no pretense of being a loving daddy-type to his players, including son Xavier, his starting center. The coach spares no one.

He blamed Carolina's winning touchdown pass on a ''blown coverage,'' which meant DeMarcus Van Dyke, a sophomore cornerback who was trying to cover Foster on the pass that won the game.

Shannon added, ``There were too many deep balls that got us in trouble and guys just blowing responsibilities.

``When you give us two big-time touchdowns on third-and-long, it's just uncalled for and it's unacceptable. It's just hard knowing you had a chance to win the game, but those guys executed and we didn't.''

MARVE SOLID AGAIN

Still, Marve -- call him ''Marvelous Marve'' and you've got it -- put up another sterling show. Even picked off twice, he still has only three interceptions for the season against five touchdown passes. He threw for three scores Saturday: 9 yards to Kayne Farquharson, 11 to Graig Cooper and 4 to Aldarius Johnson.

It is hard to say what impresses more about Marve, his poise or his arm.

I wish he weren't quite so reckless about taking off when he sees open ground ahead -- a lame quarterback can't do anything for you. But he will learn that, as he already has learned so much.

Meanwhile, it was left to the head coach's son to best capsulize this whole afternoon.

''I thought we were going to get one one of the great victories in University of Miami history,'' Xavier said.

So did we all, for a long spell of breath-holding there.

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