Cote: Miami upsets Notre Dame. Do Canes have your attention, America? | Opinion
Miami Hurricanes beloved championship-era coach Jimmy Johnson had the honor Sunday night to crank UM’s “Hurricane Siren,” a new home-game tradition that debuted vs. Notre Dame at Hard Rock Stadium. As the siren wailed before kickoff on the rainy night the stadium scoreboards flashed HURRICANE WARNING.
It was as if the Fighting Irish were being put on high alert. Turned out it was warranted.
The No. 10-ranked Hurricanes were home underdogs to No. 6 Notre Dame in the hugely anticipated, sold-out game that concluded Week 1 in college football, but maybe nobody told them. The Canes sure didn’t play like it (at least early).
Miami, launching coach Mario Cristobal’s fourth season and with a new star quarterback in Carson Beck, played like a team determined to make a statement win in a marquee matchup and inform America of its 2025 intentions:
The College Football Playoff, nothing less. And if Sunday’s 27-24 victory was a fair barometer, maybe even a run at the school’s long-elusive sixth national championship?
“We knew what we had was going to be special,” said Beck afterward, of his new team. “Nobody [on the outside] knew going into tonight, but now they do.”
One game is much too soon to declare “The U is back” fully. Especially after Miami blew a 21-7 lead and held on. It is not too soon, though, to think title contention may be possible this year. To start to believe it, even? Narrow win or not, it was a stirring, buoyant, declaration of a start to UM’s 89th season of varsity football and 24th since the last national championship in 2001.
This was UM’s biggest season-opening game and thus biggest Game 1 triumph in 21 years, since the previous top-10 vs. top-10 opening matchup to start 2004. This also felt like Cristobal’s biggest game into his fourth season back at his alma mater -- his first triumph over a top-10 foe.
It marked a solid, efficient start for Beck, who completed 20 of 30 pass attempts for 205 yards, with two touchdown throws and zero interceptions.
A 47-yard field goal by new placekicker Carter Davis, a senior transfer, won it with 1:04 left to play.
“In the face of adversity, we got it done when we needed to,” said Beck.
Said Cristobal of Beck: “He was a game-changer for us. He makes everybody around him better.”
It was not only Cristobal’s first victory over a top-10 team as head coach here, but also UM’s first since 2017.
“An unbelievable night for so many people who poured so much into this. It feels amazing,” said Cristobal. “You know the old saying, these are heavyweight bouts, and rounds 11 through 15 are going to separate the winners and the guys that don’t win. So we knew it was going to somehow, some way, get to this, and we just felt that if we were tired, that they were going to be more tired. That was, ‘Whatever it takes mentality,’ and going to get it done.”
Miami’s first apparent game-winning sequence happened in the fourth quarter as the Irish, down 21-14 but with the ball and momentum, seemed poised to tie the game.
Then a deflected Notre Dame pass was pilfered from the air by 270-pound defensive end Rueben Bain Jr., who lumbered 12 yards to the Irish 28 as the home crowd erupted. That drive stalled but Davis delivered with a 38-yard field goal, his line-drive shot providing a 10-point lead with 9:42 left.
“I was swarmin’,” said a smiling Bain of his huge play. “Found the ball in my hand and just started running.”
The Irish weren’t done erasing what was a 21-7 Miami lead.
Notre Dame would draw within 24-17 on a field goal with 5:32 to play, force a fourth straight three-and-out Canes punt -- then tie the game on Carr’s 7-yard scoring run set up by by a 65-yard pass play that was the only egregious lapse of the night by Miami’s defense..
The Canes had busted a tight game open in the third quarter to lead 21-7 on CharMar Brown’s 5-yard touchdown run. It was the first time the mostly soaked crowd mostly clad in orange could breathe a little.
But not for long.
Notre Dame drew within 21-14 in the first minute of the fourth quarter on a 1-yard scoring pass that finished a drive aided by two crucial Canes penalties, a pass interference and an unneccesary roughness.
After a scoreless first quarter Miami had led 14-7 in a first half full of defense and rain.
Canes scored first on Malachi Toney’s 28-yard pass from Beck on a ball the new QB floated perfectly through coverage near the goalline. Irish would tie it on Micah Gilbert’s 14-yard catch from their new QB, C.J. Carr.
But it was the play of the half -- and the game, maybe the season? -- that fashioned the 14-7 lead as CJ Daniels went high and with his right hand speared the pass from Beck for a 20-yard one-handed score 12 seconds before halftime. It was spectacular -- lead the ESPN SportsCenter highlights stuff.
Miami had had the first break of the game, a fumble recovery by Jakobe Thomas, but the 38-yard field goal try it led to was muffed by UM on a low snap that failed to result in a kick.
(The press box announcer seemed to say the tackle on that busted play was by “a Don Shula,” much to our surprise. It turned out to be an Irish safety named Adon Shuler.)
The Hurricanes’ stifling D in the half included a punt-forcing sack by David Blay Jr., as Miami held Notre Dame to only 116 yards in the first two quarters.
When Miami’s biggest season opener in two decades was complete, the Canes had sent word nationally that its top-10 ranking was no fluke and was about to lift higher.
Simultaneously Sunday night, Inter Miami and Lionel Messi played in but lost a Leagues Cup championship soccer match, 3-0. The Miami Dolphins open their season next Sunday in Indianapolis. South Florida’s sports calendar is crowded.
But even the Dolphins and the magical Messi cannot match the excitement the Hurricanes are generating right now.
Sunday night only turned up the volume ... and the expectations, too.
This story was originally published August 31, 2025 at 11:17 PM.
