No. 12 Hurricanes easily beat No. 22 Panthers for playoff resume-boosting win
The Miami Hurricanes handled their business on Saturday.
Will it be enough for UM to get into the College Football Playoff? Only time will tell at this point.
But if nothing else, the No. 12 Hurricanes’ 38-7 road win over the No. 22 Pittsburgh Panthers at Acrisure Stadium — giving UM consecutive 10-win seasons for the first time since 2002-2003 — was the latest data point showing Miami (10-2, 6-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) is a contender and has a chance to make noise should it get into the 12-team playoff field.
“We can compete with anybody,” quarterback Carson Beck said. “I think we’ve shown that we can compete with anyone.”
The offense scored on five of its first six drives (not including the one-play drive to end the first half) to build a 31-7 lead. Beck threw three touchdown passes to continue his hot streak that has overlapped with Miami’s four-game win streak (23 of 29 for 267 yards and three touchdowns with one interception on Saturday, 88 of 111 for 1,125 yards and 10 touchdowns with one interception over the past four games).
Freshman phenom Malachi Toney caught one of those touchdowns — wide open for a 22-yard score in the second quarter — and threw one of his own on his way to catching 13 passes for 126 yards.
With his ninth reception of the game, a 5-yard gain that helped set up a CharMar “Marty” Brown touchdown catch late in the third quarter, Toney surpassed Ahmmon Richards’ school record for most receiving yards by a freshman — that catch gave Toney 937 yards; Richards had 934 during the 2016 season as a freshman.
It got to the point that Miami, up by 24 in the fourth quarter, was feeding Toney passes to give him the chance to set the school record for receptions in a season — currently 85 by Xavier Restrepo in the 2023 season — and crack 1,000 receiving yards. He came up one catch and 30 yards short of those marks, with Beck throwing his first interception over this four-game stretch trying to get Toney the game-tying catch.
Mark Fletcher also scored a rushing touchdown, his 10th of the season, and CJ Daniels caught a 33-yard touchdown with 41 seconds left to cap scoring.
The defense, meanwhile, continued its run of dominance. The Hurricanes held Pittsburgh (8-4, 6-2 ACC) to just 229 yards. They forced four sacks — one-and-a-half each by Rueben Bain Jr. and Ahmad Moten Sr., one by Bryce Fitzgerald — and had six total tackles for loss. The Panthers went just 4 for 13 on third down and had 30 rushing yards one week after Pittsburgh had 186 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns in an upset win over Georgia Tech. Fitzgerald had an interception with 37 seconds left to seal the game.
UM’s only bad defensive drive was its third. After being held to minus-12 yards on a pair of three-and-outs, the Panthers rattled off a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive capped by a 6-yard touchdown pass from Mason Heintschel to James Holmes. That drive included an early fourth-down conversion and a 40-yard pass from Heintschel to Cataurus Hicks.
After that? Pitt had just 153 yards over its final six drives and one other real attempt to score that ended with a missed long field goal.
And special teams was a factor, too. Carter Davis gave Miami its first points on a 29-yard field goal with 4:31 left in the first quarter. Both of Dylan Joyce’s punts pinned Pittsburgh inside its 20, including a fourth-quarter punt that put them at their 1.
And Keelan Marion ripped off a 38-yard kickoff return after the Panthers’ lone touchdown drive that set Miami up near midfield. That started an eventual seven-play, 56-yard drive that ended with Toney’s touchdown pass to Elija Lofton to give the Hurricanes the lead for good.
Over their past four games, Miami has outscored its past four opponents — Syracuse, NC State, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh — by a combined 151-41.
“We dominated from the beginning to the end,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said, “and it kind of fits what we’ve been doing as a football program. We’re playing our best and getting our healthiest here toward the end of the year.”
Even with all that, Miami is still far from guaranteed a spot in the field. That comes with the territory of dropping two games midseason — a turnover-filled home loss to Louisville and an overtime loss at SMU in the span of three weeks.
“If Miami finds their way into the playoffs, they will be one of the most dangerous team in the playoff — forget about the ACC,” Nick Saban, the seven-time national champion coach, said Saturday morning on ESPN’s College GameDay. “With Carson Beck, the offensive line they have, the skill guys they have, the defense they have — I don’t want to say they underachieved by losing two games, but if they get in this playoff, they are going to be the most dangerous that anybody has to play because of the talent level they have.”
But will it be enough? Only time will tell.
This story was originally published November 29, 2025 at 3:26 PM.
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