Canes Return Home, Set to Host Louisville

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – A year ago, the Hurricanes were a top 10 team when they traveled to Louisville and found themselves in a hard-fought, back-and-forth matchup against an upset-minded Cardinals team looking to hand Miami its first loss of the season.

There’s a chance the Hurricanes could find themselves in a very similar situation this week.

With their second bye now in the rearview mirror, No. 2 Miami is set to open a marathon stretch of seven games in seven consecutive weeks when it hosts Louisville at Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night in a nationally televised primetime showdown.

And the stakes will be plenty high.

The Cardinals (4-1, 1-1) will be coming to South Florida looking to keep their ACC Championship Game hopes alive and bounce back after a tough 30-27 loss to No. 18 Virginia on Oct. 4.

The Hurricanes (5-0, 1-0), meanwhile, are looking to extend their season-opening win streak, extend their 10-game home winning streak and move one step closer of their goal of playing for a championship – all while drowning out the noise that comes with being ranked one of the top teams in the nation.

“I’ve been on championship teams, and I’ve been on teams that have been top five, and number one in the country. It means literally nothing,” said Miami quarterback Carson Beck. “And not even speaking about the past but speaking about right now and what I try to communicate and get across to these guys is the same people that are telling you’re the best and [you’re] good were telling you that we were going to go 8-4 and we were going to suck before the season. You’re going to listen to them? … That’s the thing that doesn’t really faze me or get to me. It’s like, ‘Bro, just keep playing ball. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.’ You’ve got to keep doing what got you here because a lot of teams at this time of year, they start to tank, and they start to get tired. …

“Everything in this program right now is focused on not becoming complacent, staying consistent, keep doing what got you here to this point and continue to go out and execute … That’s kind of the message around this team and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

For the first half of the season, that mental approach has worked well for the Hurricanes.

Miami is unbeaten after playing three opponents who were ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time of the matchups, have found themselves trailing for just over nine minutes in their first five games and have bounced back every time they’ve found themselves in a deficit.

Beck enters this week’s game having completed 73.4 percent of his passes. That’s tied for fourth nationally. He’s thrown for 1,213 yards and 11 touchdowns and the Hurricanes are averaging 428.0 yards per game and 6.35 yards per play.

On the ground, the Hurricanes are averaging 163.8 yards per game, with running backs Mark Fletcher Jr. and Marty Brown leading the way.

Defensively, the Hurricanes have two of the nation’s fiercest pass rushers in defensive ends Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, who have combined for 49 tackles, 5.5 sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss.

And all of those Hurricanes know the challenge that awaits against the Cardinals.

“I know that they’re a very explosive team. Every time we play them, it’s always a close game,” Mesidor said. “I think they have the most explosive plays in the country or plays past 10 yards. I’m expecting a disciplined team who plays hard, but we’re just going to get after it.”

Added Fletcher, “They’ve got a couple of new pieces, some guys who get to the ball … It’s a great defense. They fly around, high-effort guys … guys who key on the football, good defensively, high effort. It’s a great group of guys. You can tell they’re coached very well, and we’ve just got to be able to execute on our part.”

Louisville, meanwhile, comes into the game with one of the top passing defenses in the country and an offense that, under head coach Jeff Brohm, has the potential to put together more than a few big plays.

Cardinals quarterback Miller Moss has played especially well of late, completing 67-of-99 passes for 668 yards and five touchdowns in Louisville’s games against conference foes Pittsburgh and Virginia. And receiver Chris Bell has been one of his more reliable targets.

In Louisville’s last two games, Bell has caught 22 passes for 305 yards and three touchdowns. Those performances were good enough to earn him back-to-back ACC Receiver of the Week honors.

The Cardinals’ defense, led by safety D’Angelo Hutchinson, is allowing opponents an average of just 21.0 points and 150.4 passing yards per game – which ranks eighth nationally.

“It’s as complete of a team as we have faced, or will face, all year long, both in their play style and in their talent levels,” Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal said. “They have done just an excellent job forcing negative plays, disrupting the schedule of the offense. They just play really hard, really fast. They communicate really well. They give you a number of different looks both up front and on the back end. They disguise their coverages really well and they get to the ball with bad intentions. They force a lot of turnovers. … Just a really impressive football team.”

It should be, by all accounts, a quality matchup on Friday and another opportunity for Miami to move closer to its ultimate goal.

But the Hurricanes say they’re confident they’ve learned from their first five games, that they’ve used the bye week to their advantage and that they have the right mindset coming into the game.

They’re also confident playing at home, in front of a crowd that’s been behind them all year, will work to their advantage.

“The support of the community, the passion of the community, the diehards that have come out, the new [fans] that have come out, the way that they’ve packed that stadium and brought the noise and brought that juice and energy, it’s been awesome,” Cristobal said. “And now, just like we have to continue to get better, when we do something good, sustain that energy. That’s what we need out of our fan base as well. They’ve got to bring it, man. We play some really good football teams and Hard Rock is a place that we take a lot of pride in, going in there and playing well for our people, our families, our community and for the Canes. It’s just as important, we need them there and we’re always going to demand their absolute best every time they come out.”