Six telling stats from the Miami Hurricanes’ win over the USF Bulls
The No. 8 Miami Hurricanes continued their torrid start to the season with a 50-15 blowout of the USF Bulls on Saturday at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium to improve to 4-0 on the season.
Here are six key stats from the win.
▪ 50-plus: Saturday marked the third consecutive game that the Hurricanes scored at least 50 points after also beating Florida A&M 56-9 and Ball State 62-0. That is a first in Hurricanes history.
In fact there have only been three other instances in which Miami has had at least three games over the course of a season with at least 50 points scored, and they happened in three consecutive seasons: 1999, 2000 and 2001.
The 2001 national championship team beat Rutgers 61-0 on Sept. 8, Syracuse 59-0 on Nov. 17 and Washington 65-7 on Nov. 24.
The 2000 team accomplished the feat in wins over McNeese State (61-14 on Aug. 31), Rutgers (64-6 on Sept. 30) and Boston College (52-6 on Nov. 25).
And the 1999 team reached the half-century mark in victories against Florida A&M (57-3 on Sept. 4), Rutgers (55-0 on Nov. 20) and Temple (55-0 on Dec. 4).
But this year’s team, unlike the other three, did it back-to-back-to-back.
▪ 0: Miami’s defense shut out the USF offense in the second half on Saturday.
But it was the way UM did it that made it impressive.
In addition to forcing two turnovers, the Hurricanes held the Bulls to just 32 rushing yards in the second half and a three-for-eight success rate on third down. Miami also recorded two of its four sacks in the second half.
▪ 404: The latest round of Cam Ward stats brings back yet another reminder of his dominance.
Ward didn’t look his sharpest, especially in the first half, but he still managed to complete 24 of 34 passes for 404 yards and three touchdowns with one interception (on a play in which the ball popped out of Jacolby George’s hands and into the arms of a USF defender).
The 404 yards are a season high and the fourth time in his career that he threw for at least 400 yards in a game at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.
And Ward continues to distribute the ball around. Nine players caught passes on Wednesday, with Isaiah Horton (career highs of eight catches and 108 yards) and Xavier Restrepo (six catches for 99 yards) leading the way against USF.
Through four games, Ward has completed 72.3 percent of his passes (89 for 123) for 1,439 yards and 14 touchdowns with two interceptions. He has thrown for at least 300 yards and at least three touchdowns in all four games.
▪ 91: True freshman Jordan Lyle capped scoring in the fourth quarter with a 91-yard touchdown run. It’s the longest rush from scrimmage in school history, breaking the mark of 90 yards originally set by Jack Losch in 1955 and later matched by Duke Johnson in 2014.
It’s also the fourth longest play from scrimmage (rushing or passing) in school history. The school record is a 99-yard pass from Gino Torretta to Horace Copeland in 1991, followed by 97 yards (Kyle Wright to Darnell Jenkins in 2007) and 92 yards (Wright to Sinorice Moss in 2005).
Lyle finished the game with 104 rushing yards on six carries, making him the second UM player with a 100-yard rushing performance this season. Ajay Allen had 104 yards against Ball State.
▪ 3: After scoring just once through his first three games with the Hurricanes, Damien Martinez scored three touchdowns on Saturday against USF.
The scores came from 2, 1 and 1 yard out. At the time of the third score with 55 seconds left in the third quarter, Martinez had just 9 total rushing yards on seven carries. He finished with 31 yards on 11 carries (in addition to 50 receiving yards on two catches).
He is the first UM player with three rushing touchdowns in a game since Henry Parrish had three in Miami’s 70-13 win over Bethune-Cookman on Sept. 3, 2022, the first to do it against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent since quarterback Malik Rosier had three rushing scores in a 49-24 win over Toledo on Sept. 15, 2018, and the first running back to do it against an FBS team since Mark Walton had three rushing touchdowns in a 27-13 win at N.C. State on Nov. 19, 2016.
▪ 11: Linebacker Francisco Mauigoa recorded a 11 tackles on Saturday, one shy of his career-high of 12 set in the Pinstripe Bowl last season against Rutgers, and had a sack. It’s only the second time Mauigoa has had double-digit tackles in a game.
His sack was the second of the season and 13th of his college football career.
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