SoFla Guide Editors
The Hurricanes needed two overtimes, a replay booth and every bit of 66,790 lungs to put away Florida State 43-35 on Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium, ESPN reported. And while Miami was busy surviving in Miami Gardens, the rest of the country’s top teams were busy falling over. Five of the AP’s top seven lost on the same day, and CBS Miami reported that Miami is poised to take over the No. 1 spot in the poll for the first time since 2002.
A 21-point favorite that had to sweat
On paper this was supposed to be comfortable. ESPN reported Miami entered as a 21-point favorite against a Seminoles team that came in 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the ACC, with head coach Mike Norvell under mounting pressure amid a losing streak. On the field, it was anything but.
“Everyone knows, when these two teams get together, it’s a bloodbath,” Miami head coach Mario Cristobal said afterward, via Yahoo Sports and the Tampa Bay Times.
Quarterback Darian Mensah carried the Canes through it, throwing for 326 yards and three touchdowns, according to CBS Miami. Javian Mallory did the heavy lifting on the ground with 108 yards on 13 carries, Yahoo Sports and the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Cristobal was candid about how messy it got. “Credit to our guys because I could sit here and rattle off a million mistakes and errors that we need to correct, but we just kept playing. We just kept battling. Just kept on just finding a way until we finally got the momentum and made a couple plays that were the difference in the game,” he told the Miami Herald.
He also offered a reminder that the betting line meant nothing once the ball was kicked. “Everybody has good players, and if you think you’re going to show up and just automatically win, you’re going to get your a-beat,” Cristobal said, via the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The finish, and that call
The deciding sequence came in the second overtime. CBS Miami reported Mensah’s final touchdown pass was a 3-yarder to Malachi Toney, putting Miami up 43-35 and leaving FSU needing a touchdown of its own.
Instead the Seminoles found themselves staring at 4th-and-31 from the Miami 46-yard line, according to ESPN. Quarterback Ashton Daniels did the only thing you can do from there and launched a Hail Mary toward Duce Robinson. Officials ruled it an interception by Miami defensive back Bryce Fitzgerald, and the call was upheld after replay review, ESPN reported. Game over.
So, did the officials get it right? Cristobal sure thinks so, though he had a wink for the replay booth. “I thought Bryce snatched that thing and pulled it into his lap. But I know we’ve sat in this stadium before on a couple of those, so let’s try not to make that a habit going forward,” he said, via ESPN.
That “before” is a real thing. ESPN noted that two years earlier, Miami survived a Hail Mary against Virginia Tech at this same stadium when replay overturned a called touchdown. Hard Rock Stadium and last-second desperation heaves apparently have a relationship.
Daniels, for his part, did not pin the loss on the officials. “[Danzy] went up and made a fantastic play. But we didn’t execute at every position, all 11 guys on the offense, and that’s on us. In those big-time moments, we can’t have a penalty that brings us back,” the FSU quarterback told ESPN.
What it means for Miami
This one stings for FSU on a couple of levels. Yahoo Sports’ FSU Wire reported the loss stretched the Seminoles’ road losing streak to 12 games, and it marked Miami’s third consecutive win in the rivalry series.
For the Canes, the bigger story was happening everywhere else. On the same Saturday, No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 5 Indiana, No. 6 Alabama and No. 7 Texas all lost. That had never happened to five of the top seven on a single regular-season day in the history of the AP poll, which dates to 1936. It was also the first time Nos. 1 and 2 both went down on the same regular-season day since Oregon and Kansas State in 2012.
Miami came in ranked No. 3, having climbed from No. 4 after a bye week that followed a 41-13 win over Clemson. With everyone above them losing, CBS Miami reported the Hurricanes were positioned to claim the top spot for the first time since 2002.
What’s next
Cristobal, predictably, wants nothing to do with the number. Asked by CBS Miami about reaching No. 1, he said: “We have a good enough sample size of 2026 to know that’s absolutely insignificant and irrelevant with the changing of the guard from week to week. It just has no value to our processes and whatnot. I’ll focus on the real ‘1’ that’s important – the 1-0.”
Fair enough, Coach. The rest of South Florida will handle the celebrating. The new AP poll will settle the question officially, and if the numbers land the way CBS Miami expects, it will be the first time in a generation that the Canes look down at everyone else.
