Miami Hurricanes’ Mario Cristobal talks Notre Dame, names Carson Beck’s backup
It’s finally game week.
The No. 10 Miami Hurricanes begin the 2025 season on Sunday against the No. 6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Hard Rock Stadium (7:30 p.m., ABC), which means coach Mario Cristobal is now willing to start talking about his opponent as the focus shifts from his team to game prep.
And he knows what type of matchup the Hurricanes have on their hands this weekend.
“You have to acknowledge good players where they have them,” Cristobal said Monday morning on WQAM’s The Joe Rose Show. “I mean, this is a team that played national championship and was really a drive away from winning the national championship. They return 11 of those starters and replaced some of the departed ones with starters from other places, so they have great players. [But] I don’t think you ever, ever shy away from doing your absolute best game planning and execution with the players that you have. We have trust and confidence in our players, and we’re going to go play our best football.”
Miami enters the marquee matchup — one of three games between top-10 teams on the weekend and the Hurricane’s first top-10 contest to open a season since 2004 — as 2.5-point underdogs to Notre Dame, which went 14-2 last year and lost 34-23 to Ohio State in the national championship game.
The Hurricanes have a little bit of clarity entering the week about what they’ll be facing on offense with the Fighting Irish naming redshirt freshman CJ Carr as starting quarterback, but Cristobal knows the focus comes down to stopping the run. Notre Dame has one of the top running backs in college football in Jeremiyah Love, who ran for 1,125 yards and 17 touchdowns while averaging 6.9 yards per carry last season.
“You’ve always got to be able to run the ball and stop the run,” Cristobal said. “If you can’t do that, then you’re going to get gutted. But as to their quarterbacks, they have talented quarterbacks. We know one’s been named a starter, and obviously [has] a tremendous amount of talent, and he’s bolstered by a massive offensive line, but they have a couple really good quarterbacks. In Game 1, you prepare for everything by just sticking to making sure that your systems and your processes are in place and you’re repping like crazy.”
Cristobal names backup QB
On the Hurricanes front, Cristobal on Monday formally announced that Emory Williams will begin the season as Miami’s No. 2 quarterback to starter Carson Beck.
“Emory is going to be the backup,” Cristobal said. “Luke [Nickel] is there competing his butt off. So is Judd [Anderson], but that’s what we’re rolling right now.”
Williams, a redshirt sophomore, has completed 61.9% of his career passes (60 for 97) for 657 yards and four touchdowns against two interceptions. He showed his potential in a pair of spot starts in 2023, including helping Miami to a double-overtime win over Clemson, before sustaining a season-ending arm injury. His only real action in 2024 came in the second half of the Pop-Tarts Bowl, during which he struggled (5 for 14, 26 yards, one interception).
Williams said ahead of camp that performance was a “wake-up call” for him. It appears that has shown throughout practices leading up to the season.
“Emory’s playing really, really well and he’s taking a lot of snaps,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “And the young guys [Anderson and Nickel] are really doing good things too. Now, will they make a bonehead deal every now and again? Yeah, they will, and that’s my job to kind of level that out a little bit, but they show spurts of doing some really, really good things and are really talented guys.”
This story was originally published August 25, 2025 at 7:35 AM.
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