No. 1 Hurricanes’ comeback bid falls short in loss to No. 11 Notre Dame
The Miami Hurricanes looked like they finally had things figured out.
The defense was finally getting stops. The offense was finally scoring. The deficit that swelled to three touchdowns was suddenly down to one score not once but twice.
And then came the passes — both to the same receiver, both with the same defender in coverage.
First, quarterback Darian Mensah floated a ball down the sidelined for Elija Lofton. Notre Dame defensive back Luke Talich tussled with the tight end before coming down with the ball for an interception. Eight plays later, highlighted by a massive gain on fourth down, the Fighting Irish were back up two scores early in the fourth quarter.
And then, on their final attempt to tie the game, Mensah tossed a ball to the corner of the end zone for Lofton. The tight end had the ball in his hands before Talich ripped it out right at the end. Turnover on downs.
And, eventually, game over — and undefeated season over.
In their biggest game of the season — without perhaps their biggest playmaker — the top-ranked Hurricanes saw their comeback bid fall flat in a 31-24 loss to the No. 11 Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium.
Miami falls to 8-1 on the season. Notre Dame improves to 8-1 and saw its fans storm the field after the win.
“Tough loss to take,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “Certainly proud of our guys for their resilience and toughness they showed the whole way through.”
That said, Cristobal was visibly frustrated by the referees calling the Lofton play incomplete “with two hands on the ball and two feet in bounds.”
“But like we told our team before we left Miami: do not leave it in the hands of the officials because that’s what you’re going to get out here,” Cristobal said.
And to Cristobal’s point, his team put itself in a rough spot because of how poorly it played early.
The Hurricanes trailed 17-3 at halftime and 24-3 minutes into the third quarter before mounting its comeback bid.
Mensah, after only completing 6 of 12 passes for 49 yards in the first half, threw touchdown passes on consecutive drives — 12 yards each to Lofton and then Cooper Barkate — to cut Miami’s deficit to 24-17 with about five-and-a-half minutes left in the third quarter.
Notre Dame’s Talich then intercepted Mensah and the Fighting Irish went back up two scores on the ensuing possession, 31-17, when Nolan James Jr. scored a 1-yard rushing touchdown four plays after converting a fourth and 2 with a 36-yard gain on a wheel route.
Mensah found Barkate in the end zone for a second time — this time on a 1-yard pass — to get Miami to within 31-24 with 9:56 left in regulation.
Notre Dame missed a field goal, and Miami barely missed a chance to tie the game late.
“It was just backs against the wall,” Mensah said of the comeback attempt. “We didn’t have any other option but to go. I’m proud of our guys with the way we fought back. Obviously wasn’t enough and it hurts.”
The loss came amid the absence of star wide receiver Malachi Toney, a Heisman Trophy frontrunner who underwent ankle surgery on Thursday.
Toney is expected to miss at least rest of the regular season, with UM’s hope being he returns for the postseason should the Hurricanes qualify.
Toney not being on the field definitely was noticed, but it was far from the only reason Miami lost.
The pass defense struggled early, with Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr completing 29 of 40 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns — with all three touchdowns coming in the first 33 minutes of the game.
The offense, which entered Saturday leading the country in scoring offense (47.6 points per game) and second in yards per game (534.9), looked erratic and for the first time all season showed an inability to finish drives in the first half.
And the one drive the Hurricanes scored on was the perhaps the most frustrating.
After punting on their first two drives and falling behind 10-0, Miami methodically marched down the field on its third possession.
Barkate had a 24-yard catch-and-run. Mark Fletcher Jr. powered through a third and short to move the chains. Vandrevius Jacobs had a 22-yard catch-and-run. A pair of Notre Dame penalties with Miami in Fighting Irish territory to keep the possession alive.
And then three consecutive runs from the 1-yard line came up empty. Miami settled for a field goal.
“We took points,” Cristobal said, “but you’d like to get that ball in the end zone.”
Notre Dame two possessions later ripped off an eight-play, 81-yard drive in 1:39, capped by an 18-yard touchdown pass from Carr to Micah Gilbert to take the 17-3 lead into halftime.
Miami found its groove in the second half but always remained at least one play away from fully coming back until it ran out of time.
“As an organization, we’ve got to coach better [and] we’ve got to play better,” Cristobal said. “You put yourself in a hole like that against a team like that, that’s going to be tough sledding. You’ve got to be near perfect. The margins become that much more thin. That’s going to be the focus of what I talk about going forward.”
And moving forward, Miami still has its clear path to the playoff and a national championship pursuit.
The Hurricanes get an automatic bid into the playoff if it wins the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. UM is undefeated in conference play at 6-0 with three league games left — Duke on Nov. 14, Virginia Tech on Nov. 21 and Boston College on Nov. 28, all at home. UM secures its spot in the conference title game with wins in two of those three games.
This story was originally published November 7, 2026 at 11:06 PM with the headline "No. 1 Hurricanes’ comeback bid falls short in loss to No. 11 Notre Dame."
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