Hurricanes battle but lose when game-winning field-goal attempt bounces off upright
The late, great Howard Schnellenberger, coach of Miami’s first national championship team in 1983, was added to the Hurricanes’ Ring of Honor at halftime of UM vs. Virginia on Thursday night.
The honor of the night, however, came inches from going to kicker Andy Borregales — until his 33-yard field-goal attempt bounced off the left upright as time expired to give Virginia the 30-28 victory in Miami’s Atlantic Coast Conference opener.
“There is a lot of hurt in that locker room now,’’ UM coach Manny Diaz said. “It was a game of missed opportunities. Our guys believed, though, and that was on the verge of being something remarkable with what this team has gone through. Obviously, we started very slowly, allowed them to take control of the game. I think at one point snaps [count] was 35-11. Had a hard time getting a rhythm, had a hard time running the football, had a hard time protecting our quarterback.
“As time went on, we grew into the game and, like I said, I thought our fourth-quarter effort was worthy of victory and ultimately we came up one play short.”
Until UM mounted its second-half comeback that turned into a frantic fourth-quarter battle, not a whole lot approached honorable for Miami in the ESPN national telecast from Hard Rock Stadium. But somehow, halftime boos turned into joyous cheers from the crowd of 37,269 that witnessed a game with the lowest of first-half lows and highest of second-half highs.
What’s the limit?
Diaz said he didn’t know how to answer how much more the Hurricanes can take.
“What I know is what I just saw in that fourth quarter,’’ the coach said. “There was not a lot of evidence that we could do what we did right there and give us a chance to win the game. The guys believe in each other. There’s not a person that I’d want to line up to kick that field goal [other] than Andy Borregales. I think everyone on that sideline thought we were going to win the football game and we had done enough to win the football game.”
UM, which scored 21 second-half points, began its final drive with 5:36 left. The Canes had come within two points on a valiant 24-yard touchdown scramble by quarterback Tyler Van Dyke with 9:09 left.
Van Dyke completed 15 of 29 passes for 203 yards and a touchdown. He hit 11 of 18 for 140 yards in the second half. He was sacked four times.
Miami played for the second consecutive week without injured starting quarterback D’Eriq King (shoulder), and for the first week without injured freshman backup Jake Garcia, who badly hurt his ankle last game, UM coach Manny Diaz revealed, and will be out at least through October and possibly part of November.
Garcia time frame
“Jake will be out, I’ll say, through October, maybe back sometime in November. I think we do have a chance to get him back before the regular season ends.”
Diaz added that “the stunning part’’ of Garcia’s injury saga is that “it was actually something from the last game. It turned out it was an ankle injury that didn’t bother him during the game. That night, it swelled up a little bit. He took pictures of it the next day and it turned out to be long-term.”
Second-year freshman Van Dyke learned quickly that the Cavaliers, no matter how desperate for a win, were not the same animal as FCS’s Central Connecticut State team that UM slaughtered last week.
“I gotta give credit to the offense,’’ Van Dyke said. “They really kept me up when things weren’t going well, told me to keep my head up... Yeah, I felt a lot better in the second half, felt more confident. Things were moving really fast for me in the first half.”
UM, which fell to 2-3 for the first time since 2019, gained 372 yards.
Field goal decision
Was there a point that Diaz decided to go for the field goal in that final drive? The Canes had the ball on the UVA 14-yard line on third-and-10 with 45 seconds left.
“We were trying to score,’’ Diaz said. “Obviously, we had gashed them on the run from about the 50-yard line in. We thought that they were pretty whipped up front, fatigue-wise. They had been subbing, they had been losing guys. We simply just didn’t gain yards on first and second down, then once it became third down-and-10 — and the way the clock was. They took a timeout late in the play clock, which, at that point, we could control the clock and we could kick the walk-off field goal, but we were trying to score a touchdown until it got to third down.”
Running back Cam’Ron Harris had 111 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries.
Virginia quarterback Brennan Armstrong, who came into Thursday No. 1 nationally in passing yards per game, was 25 of 44 for 268 yards and a touchdown, with one interception.
The Cavaliers are 3-2 and 1-2.
Boos into cheers
Even when UM finally did something to turn home-crowd boos into cheers (a third-quarter Corey Flagg interception followed three plays later by Van Dyke’s 16-yard touchdown pass to Mike Harley to cut the UVA lead to 19-14), the Cavaliers scored a spectacular touchdown on their ensuing drive. On that play, Armstrong’s 36-yard pass went through the arms of UM cornerback Marcus Clarke, then bounced off Cavalier Dontayvion Wicks’ back and arm as he rolled over and grabbed the ball before it hit the ground.
A two-point UVA conversion gave the Cavs a 27-14 lead at 5:50 of the third quarter.
The Hurricanes came back two drives later with a 57-yard touchdown rush by Harris to cut the deficit to 27-21 at 1:04 of the third quarter, but UVA drove 62 yards on nine plays to begin the fourth quarter with a 30-yard field goal to make it 30-21 Virginia.
UM’s first touchdown was an impressive leap over a pile of Cavaliers for a second-quarter, 1-yard plunge by Harris that culminated a five-play, 54-yard drive. The drive began with a 36-yard completion by Van Dyke to Charleston Rambo.
By the end of the first quarter the Cavaliers led 9-0 and had held Miami to 10 total yards.
By halftime, with fans booing, it was 16-7 Virginia, with the Hurricanes up to 94 yards.
Miami has more than two weeks to ponder what might have been or what still could be should the ACC stay wacky and unpredictable. The Canes get to heal their physical, mental and emotional wounds before traveling next to Chapel Hill to face Coastal Division opponent North Carolina (2-2, 1-2) on Oct. 16. UNC trounced UM to end the 2020 regular season.
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 11:42 PM.
