Cote: Miami’s Cardiac Canes win another wild one, 52-45 at Louisville; No. 6 UM now 7-0 | Opinion
Miami Hurricanes fans and their cardiologists undoubtedly were hoping for a stress-free game for a change Saturday afternoon in Louisville -- or at least a finish that wasn’t frantic.
They didn’t get it.
After a 39-38 win at Cal that relied on a miracle comeback followed a 38-34 escape vs. Virginia Tech that required a last-second overturned touchdown, Saturday delivered the typical chaos and bedlam with a 38-38 game in the fourth quarter.
Same story when it ended, though:
Winning. Somehow, any way.
The Cardiac Canes are still unbeaten, still thinking ACC Championship Game, and still dreaming College Football Playoff.
Close counts, and so Saturday’s eventual 52-45 UM victory left the No. 6-ranked Hurricanes an imperfect but unblemished 7-0.
Quarterback Cam Ward passed for 319 yards and four TDs to lead the UM win, becoming the first Canes QB ever to surpass 300 yards and three TDs in the first seven games of a season. The Heisman Trophy may be his to lose. Saturday only increased his chances.
Ward deflected the praise as usual.
“You saw today, I’m throwing to wide open people,” he said. “Our O-line is a big reason. Man, we rushed for 200 yards, that’s gonna make my job easier.”
I’ll give credit where it’s due. Miami has won three straight games in which the other teams scored 117 total points. How? The answer starts with Ward, whose get through the transfer portal has been a Powerball hit for UM.
“His football I.Q., his understanding of coverages,” said coach Mario Cristobal of Ward, an impressed shake of his head finishing the thought.
Sam Brown and Xavier Restrepo both had 100 yards receiving. Miami also topped 200 yards rushing.
“There was a lot of good stuff,” Cristobal said. “What’s starting to come around is our running game.”
The Cardinals apparently scored a long fumble-return touchdown that would have tied the game 45-45, but a review reversed the call and erased the TD, ruling that Ward’s fumble was in fact a forward pass that fell incomplete.
It was the right call.
Soon after the Canes’ Damien Martinez uncorked a 30-yard scoring run for the final score.
It was a huge Miami victory that followed the bye. UM had been 0-2 after byes under Cristobal and on a 3-11 skid overall following byes. And the reversal of that trend was well-timed, indeed.
“This is a really big one,” Cristobal had admitted before the game.
Louisville entered 4-2 and recently ranked. It was a signature win for the UM program and for Cristobal by my reckoning -- because of how everything would have changed had the Canes lost.
A loss and Miami’s reaching the ACC title game would have been much less certain. And it would have left UM as a one-loss team being in much more precarious shape on making the 12-team CFP at all.
Miami may well need to finish 12-0 in the regular season, with no wins over ranked opponents on its 2024 ledger. And Saturday at Louisville seemed the most difficult hurdle left om the schedule.
Plenty of drama ahead, though, with a prime-time game vs. Florida State next and then a visit by Duke. FSU is living a nightmare season at 1-6 but will be pumped to spoil the season of its great rival. Duke is 6-1 and coached by former Canes coach Manny Diaz, who’d also love to derail the school that fired him.
Saturday was a typical game in many ways for Miami: Imperfect even as the perfection continued.
In addition to the continuing defensive lapses, in the second-half alone Saturday Miami gave up a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown, lost a fumble that Louisville turned into another TD, and allowed a successful fake punt that led to the score that made it 38-38.
“A horrible, horrible job covering that kick,” said a clearly upset Cristobal. “If you get playing time at the University of Miami, its’ a tremendous privilege. That’s gonna be a tough (team) meeting for a few guys.”
But Ajay Allen’s 2-yard TD run and then Martinez ‘s long scoring gallop were the difference. The latter proved to be the winning points as Louisville scored with 54 seconds left.
The Canes led by 24-17 at the half.
Up an early field goal, Miami trailed 7-3 on a 43-yard scoring run by Louisville’s Isaac Brown -- UM’s proneness to allowing big plays continuing.
Canes countered with a gorgeous 27-yard scoring strike from Ward to Jacolby George in the upper left corner of the end zone for a 10-7 lead that grew to 17-7 on Ward’s 49-yard pass play to Brown, another of Miami’s transfer portal prizes.
After the Cardinals closed within 17-14 on a 3-yard scoring run, Miami cashed a huge defensive TD on a Louisville fumble into the end zone from its own 3, caused by Miami’s Simeon Barrow and recovered by Raul Aguirre Jr. It was UM ‘s first defensive fumble recovery of the season, and a giant one to make it 24-14 before the Cards chipped in a 22-yard field goal as the half ended.
The second half got crazy, as by now you might expect.
Oh, by the way: With the win Miami reclaimed Howard Schnellenberger Trophy, named for the late great coach who meant so much to both UM and Louisville.
That was nice.
But the Hurricanes have much bigger prizes in mind, namely the ACC title game and the CFP -- and wherever that might lead.
Saturday’s victory kept both prizes in sight.
This story was originally published October 19, 2024 at 4:05 PM.
