Three things that must improve as Hurricanes look to rebound from Louisville loss
Mario Cristobal hopes the Miami Hurricanes learn from what happened on Friday.
They have to, if they want to keep their goals for the season alive.
Miami lost its first game of the season in a 24-21 upset by the Louisville Cardinals at Hard Rock Stadium. UM, which dropped seven spots to No. 9 in the AP poll following the defeat, trailed 14-0 10 minutes into the game, was still down by 11 early in the fourth quarter and saw a late comeback attempt fizzle after quarterback Carson Beck threw his fourth interception of the game in the final minute.
“We have good people and really good competitors,” Cristobal said Monday morning during his weekly appearance on WQAM’s “The Joe Rose Show.” “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we are the same team that started off 5-0 against a really tough schedule. It is the same people, the same players, and the same coaches. We learned the lesson of if you don’t perform at the highest level every week, humility is right around the corner.”
As the Hurricanes (5-1, 1-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) prepare to host Stanford (3-4, 2-2 ACC) on Saturday, with kickoff from Hard Rock Stadium at 7 p.m. and the game broadcast on ESPN, here are three areas where Miami has to improve from recent weeks to get back on track.
Find the run game again
The run game was supposed to be a strength for the Hurricanes this season. And it was through the first four weeks when Miami averaged 180.5 rushing yards and scored 12 touchdowns on the ground.
But over the past two weeks, the rushing attack has become almost a non-factor. Miami had just 160 total rushing yards on 56 carries — a meager 2.86 yards per rush — in their games against Florida State and Louisville.
Against the Cardinals on Friday, Miami had just 63 rushing yards on 24 carries for a 2.63 yards-per-carry average. They had only two carries go for more than 10 yards, and one of those was a reverse by wide receiver Malachi Toney for a 12-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“The devil’s in the details,” Cristobal said. “We’ve been really good at running the football, and we’ve been a little bit off the last couple of weeks, and we need to get back to our ways in the form and the way that we do run the football, and that’s with the principles of technique and fundamentals and pad level and making sure we can get both downhill and outside by doing what we do.”
Miami has talent to make an impact on the ground. The trio of Mark Fletcher Jr., Jordan Lyle and CharMar Brown, plus the offensive line in front of it, should be able to make plays consistently.
It needs to find its groove again.
“Our run game is what it is,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “We need to execute it better. There’s times when we have things there and we miss it. I don’t deflect any blame from that. I have to stick with it. I have to package it together a little bit better, probably. But ultimately, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing, and I have to stick with and just execute.”
Clean up penalties
The Hurricanes are averaging 7.8 penalties per game this season, tied for the 17th most nationally and the third most in the ACC behind only Wake Forest (8.3 penalties per game) and Pittsburgh (7.9 penalties per game).
Miami had nine penalties for 68 yards against Louisville, including three on third downs in the second half. That comes one game after it had 13 penalties for 114 yards against FSU.
Over the past four games in particular, the Hurricanes have been called for 15 pre-snap penalties on offense — 11 false starts, three illegal snaps and one illegal motion.
Cristobal preaches discipline and Miami not setting itself back with self-inflicted mistakes. The Hurricanes have done just that the past two weeks. It ultimately didn’t impact the final outcome against the Seminoles, but it did on Friday against Cardinals.
“It’s hurt us. There’s no question about that,” Cristobal said. “They not only stall drives, but they’ve created good field position for the opponent, which led to points on the other side as well. That’s where, in these games, the margins are really important, and the margins between winning and losing become smaller and smaller. And that’s one where we have not done a good enough job.”
Get back to proper tackling
The Hurricanes had been pretty good this season finishing their tackles and not letting opponents slip away for extra yards. They had missed just 15.3% of their tackle attempts through the first five games, according to Pro Football Focus.
But against Louisville, Miami defenders missed a whopping combined 27 tackles — more than half of their season total of 51 whiffs through the five games leading up to Friday.
Nickel cornerback Keionte Scott and linebacker Wesley Bissainthe each missed five of 12 tackle attempts. Safety Zechariah Poyser missed four of 10. Safety Jakobe Thomas missed all three of his.
The 27 missed tackles are the most in a game by the Hurricanes since their loss to Michigan State on Sept. 18, 2021.
“Going up to this point, I thought we had done a better job of taking some angles, tackling and finishing,” defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman said. “That’s something that we talked about watching the video as we put that game away.”
This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 10:53 AM.
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