“It’s a culmination of everything we have been through for the past four years for this senior class,” Offensive lineman Kc McDermott said. “It proves that we don’t quit. There were plenty of times, and I’m sure people can look back to our sophomore year when we played Clemson, and thought that senior class isn’t going to do anything. We came out this season and said ‘let’s prove people wrong and go win some games.’ We’re going to win games and we take them one at a time. We’ve imparted that wisdom on the younger guys too and let them know it’s one game at a time and focus on what we have to do every single week.”
The hype entering the game surrounded Notre Dame’s offensive line that was paving the way for a rushing offense that averaged 324.8 yards per game. But Miami’s defense stifled the Fighting Irish ground game, holding Notre Dame to 109 rushing yards. Heisman Trophy candidate Josh Adams, who came in averaging 132.3 rushing yards per game (8.69 yards per carry), was held to 40 yards on 16 carries for an average of 2.5 yards per carry.
“I think the credit has to go to our players,” then-Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “They had studied what they like to do and what they didn’t like to do. They just lined up and played with tenacity that maybe they hadn’t seen so far before. We have a lot of respect for them, but we feel like we are pretty good ourselves and I think we presented some things to them that they haven’t seen.”
Miami’s ground attack fared much better, as sophomore Travis Homer exploded for 146 yards on 18 carries, averaging 8.1 yards per carry. As a team, the Canes averaged 5.6 yards per carry against Notre Dame, amassing 237 yards and three touchdowns on the ground.
“We had a mentality today to go out and prove everybody wrong,” McDermott said. “They had the best rushing offense in the country and we wanted to prove that they should be talking about us because we’re a pretty damn good offensive line, too.”
While the running game was outstanding, Miami’s offense found the end zone for the first time through the air. Senior wide receiver Braxton Berrios laid out to haul in a pass from quarterback Malik Rosier and then tapped both feet in the end zone to make the seven-yard touchdown official and give the Hurricanes a 7-0 lead with 4:01 remaining in the opening quarter.
“It’s incredible,” Berrios said. “This is why you come to Miami. This is why you play college football. We’re going to the ACC championship for the first time in the school’s history. That was our first goal of the year. That was number one. We knew we had accomplished that right before the game started but nothing was said about it. We had this to focus on. We had bigger things to attend to right now. To come out here and put on that dominating performance is why you play.”
The Hurricanes broke out the Turnover Chain out on Notre Dame’s ensuing drive, as junior safety Jaquan Johnson caught a tipped pass from Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush that was intended for wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown. Johnson finished the game with a team-high eight tackles, one tackle for loss, an interception and a pass breakup.
“We just came out and played to our standard,” Johnson said. “We wanted to come out and compete against a great offensive line and a great running back and quarterback. We wanted to hold them to as minimum yards as possible so that’s what we did tonight, we came out and competed and were able to dominate them.”
Following a rushing touchdown by Rosier, Miami forced two more turnovers in the opening half. Sophomore cornerback Malek Young picked off Wimbush that led a Hurricanes’ field goal.
“This is to me natural order restored,” Diaz said. “This is the way a Saturday night in Miami should be. It should be a big time game with two great teams with an amazing atmosphere. The crowd absolutely had a role. They helped us. It’s still an inexperienced quarterback that has not played many road games. It was rough in there. It’s hard. I think some of the mistakes that he made early in the game with the crowd noise, it starts to snowball on a guy, so our fans deserve a lot of credit in the way we played defense tonight.”
Ian Book took over at quarterback for Notre Dame but did not fare much better, as freshman corner Trajan Bandy jumped in front of a Book pass on third-and-6 from the UM 38 and returned the interception 65 yards for a touchdown gave the Hurricanes a 27-0 lead at halftime.
“I just came down hill,” Bandy said. “I saw the quarterback look to that side and we we’re doing that play over and over in practice, once he threw the ball I saw green grass and took it to the house. It was a game-changing moment and I couldn’t be more excited to take it to the house.”
