Folks, the Miami Hurricanes appear to actually be good. The No. 10 Canes beat the No. 13 Virginia Tech Hokies 28-10 in their first home night game of the season at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday night.
Miami Hurricanes pass their first big test of the season with blowout of Virginia Tech
The Canes get a huge win at home, and are one step closer to the ACC Championship Game.
Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
The Canes went to the locker room with a 14-3 lead, and the Hokies made it a 14-10 game with a third-quarter score, but Miami’s offense put the game out of reach with a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including this gorgeous 43-yard throw from Malik Rosier.
Miami’s defense had three turnovers in the second half to keep the Hokies off the board and seal the big win. The Miami turnover chain that gets awarded to the defense after forcing a turnover was getting some work all night, too.
The Canes couldn’t clinch the ACC Coastal on Saturday, but with games against Pitt and UVA remaining, Miami looks in outstanding shape to represent the division on Championship Saturday in the ACC Championship.
Not only does that win do just that, but it shows us this Miami team is for real, with VT really being the first big test for the Canes so far this season. That’s a good reason Miami’s only ranked 10th in the College Football Playoff Rankings even though the Canes are undefeated, as my colleague Michael Bird touched on this week:
Part of the reason for Miami’s soft ranking is that it has a back-loaded schedule. With Florida State’s demise, Miami has not yet played a ranked team and only two — (Toledo and Georgia Tech — with winning records.
The other part is that Miami has not beaten its opponents in an impressive fashion.
Miami enters the Virginia Tech game on a four-game streak in which it has won each time by one score. The Canes needed last-minute drives to beat Florida State and Georgia Tech, then had to hold onto late leads against Syracuse and North Carolina.
It seems as if most seasons feature a team with Miami’s profile — a team that wins a bunch of close games and provokes the perennial debate between the camps of “your record is all that matters” and “how you win has predictive value and should be a part of the rankings.”
The next big test for Miami is coming in a couple in exactly a week, as the No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish come to town with some high Playoff hopes still very much alive. Don’t look now, but Miami juuuust might be back, folks.
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