Recap: Miami survives North Carolina 38-35
· Yahoo Sports
Wow. All I can immediately muster as I sit down at my computer.
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The Miami Hurricanes remained perfect on Saturday night in Chapel Hill, just barely getting past North Carolina 38-35.
Darian Mensah was 22/29 passing for 274 yards and three scores with no interceptions. Mark Fletcher, Jr. had 13 rushes for 43 yards with two touchdowns and added a 31-yard receiving touchdown. Malachi Toney had seven catches for 75 yards and two touchdowns. Chase Smith, JJ Dunnigan, and Mohamed Toure all led Miami with 9 total tackles each.
As the score indicates, it was a defense optional contest from the start. Miami went 74 yards in 13 plays to take a 7-0 lead. Mensah lobbed a ball towards the sideline in the end zone to Toney, who made an incredible blind catch over the shoulder that I can’t do justice with words for a two-yard score.
UNC punted (I don’t write those words again in this piece, very sadly), on the ensuing drive, but Miami punted it back six plays later.
And that’s when Miami’s 2024 defense trotted out onto the field. The Hurricanes were an absolute disaster as a unit, missing tackle after tackle, particularly on the perimeter, and getting absolutely eaten alive in zone coverage. Carolina went off in the second quarter, putting together an 11-play, 84-yard drive and a 12-play, 75- yard drive, both of which ended in touchdown passes to UNC TE Jelani Thurman, who Miami made look like the greatest college tight end I’ve ever seen.
The Hurricanes had their own touchdown in between, with Mark Fletcher, Jr. lining up wide in the back side of a diamond formation near the sideline. He took a quick pass from Mensah, and the trio in front of him forged a lane that he took 31 yards to the house.
The Hurricanes added a field goal shortly before the halftime whistle for a 17-14 lead.
UNC’s Billy Edwards, who had the game of his life with 341 yards on 28/34 passing with four touchdowns and no picks, rolled right and hit Jordan Shipp in the end zone for a 21-17 lead on the first drive of the second half. Miami answered with their own long drive to go back up 24-21, with Fletcher, bowling in and getting over the goal line, which survived a review.
But I mentioned UNC didn’t punt again, and instead, they kept schooling Corey Hetherman’s defense for the second half. The following drive was a death by 1000 paper cuts, going 16 plays for 75 yards and taking almost eight and a half minutes off the clock. Demon June ran it in from a yard out with under 12 minutes left, and it was Carolina back on top 28-24.
Finally Miami took the lead and didn’t give it back up. Toney finally found himself all alone after a night of being bracketed, with a 31-yard catch and run to energize the drive. Fletcher bowled into the end zone on fourth and 1 at the two, and Miami could breathe again momentarily.
The game turned in a big way when Marquise Lightfoot got home and forced a fumble by Edwards, and Justin Scott fell on it. Six plays later, Toney juked his defender out of his shorts and caught a slant for a 38-28 lead with just over two and a half minutes left.
Miami’s sieve of a defense on the night allowed UNC to go 75 yards IN 55 SECONDS, and Carolina recovered two onside kick attempts, but offsides and illegal block flags — both fully legit — wiped them out. Miami recovered the third attempt and killed the remaining clock.
Survive and advance. On to Notre Dame.