Canes Look to Bounce Back Against Stanford

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – There have been challenges this season, no doubt.

They’ve dealt with injuries, had to rally from deficits, endure weather delays and they lined up against a longtime rival in a hostile environment.

This week, though, the Hurricanes face their biggest challenge of the season so far: getting back on track after suffering their first loss of the season.

Through its first five games, Miami was a force, knocking off three top 25 opponents and rising steadily in the polls while a series of Hurricanes – including quarterback Carson Beck, defensive linemen Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, and receivers CJ Daniels and Malachi Toney – generated headlines and accolades for their stellar play.

But last Friday, the Hurricanes found themselves in an early deficit against an upset-minded Louisville team at Hard Rock Stadium. And while Miami battled back and had the opportunity to either tie or win the game late, a series of mistakes kept them from completing any kind of comeback and the Cardinals escaped with a win.

Since, the ninth-ranked Hurricanes have tried to put the loss behind them, while focusing on making sure they correct the mistakes they made and execute the way they know they can, especially with Stanford, another ACC opponent, set to visit Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday night for another primetime matchup.

“We didn’t play well [against Louisville]. We didn’t execute our plan and there’s a lot we can be better at,” said Beck, who threw four interceptions in last week’s loss. “We’ve had some really good practices this week, really honed in and focused on some of those little mistakes and things that we can fix. … We’ve moved on from last week. We’re three practices in and focusing on prep for Stanford. Again, [we’re] just trying to continue to get better and go 1-0 each week.”

Added cornerback Keionte Scott, “At the end of the day, we didn’t play to our standard. We didn’t fly around, and we didn’t help each other out in certain situations. We pride ourselves on just taking our shots and everybody flying around to the football and I feel like that was something that we lacked last [Friday] and something we’re definitely focused on improving as the season goes on.”

As they prepare to face Stanford, the Hurricanes (5-1, 1-1) will look to not only cut back on their turnovers but clean up a series of pre-snap penalties and get their run game going again.

Miami managed just 63 rushing yards against Louisville after posting 119 rushing yards against Notre Dame, 199 rushing yards against Bethune-Cookman, 205 rushing yards against USF, 184 rushing yards against Florida and 97 rushing yards against Florida State.

The Hurricanes know they have to be better moving forward.

“Not taking anything away from what Louisville did. They came out there, great team, and they had a great plan for us, and they executed well,” said running back Mark Fletcher Jr., who has a team-high 446 rushing yards and six touchdowns on the season. “But as far as us, Miami, we didn’t execute as well in the run game. … They had a great plan for us and then shoot, we just have to execute better. … We know when we’re on our ‘A’ game and we’re locked in and we’re executing that nobody can stop us. So, we have to be better. We’re just taking account to it. We’ve got to be better, and we’ve got to move on.”

Defensively, meanwhile, the Hurricanes noted they need to ensure their communication is effective and that they tackle better against the Cardinal’s playmakers than they did against Louisville’s.

And there’s no doubt Miami’s players and coaches know they’ll face a test against Stanford (3-4, 2-2) which has weathered its own share of challenges this season, but is coming into Saturday’s matchup after a confidence-building 20-13 win over Florida State.

Interim head coach Frank Reich and general manager Andrew Luck bring plenty of NFL experience to the table and together, the two have helped Stanford navigate a preseason coaching change and a stretch of uncertainty after the dismissal of former coach Troy Taylor.

“I think they’ve been through a lot as a program with the change and whatnot and coaching and all the things that are going on,” said Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, who posted a 2-2 record against Stanford during his time as the head coach at Oregon. “And I think they’ve done a great job at really finding their way and schematically, and from a personnel standpoint, putting guys in position to play really, really well.

“I think it showed on Saturday against Florida State, with them holding one of the best offenses in the country to 13 points and playing a really physical brand of football … You can tell that their experience as pros and having been in the pros is really starting to carry over and bleed into what they do schematically. Besides being a physical team that really plays hard, they do enough stuff schematically where you really have to prepare well.”

The Hurricanes know if they want to keep their championship hopes alive, they’re going to have to make sure they’ve done the kind of preparation Cristobal described.

They also know they have to correct the mistakes that proved costly against Louisville, not dwell on that loss and get back to executing the way they did during the first part of the season.

If all of that comes together, they’re confident they can start a new winning streak and move another step closer to their ultimate goal.

“One shortcoming doesn’t take away everything else that we’ve done this season and it doesn’t take anything away of what we still can continue to do,” Beck said. “So, for us, it’s just next-play mentality, next-game mentality. Just taking things day by day and trying to go 1-0 every single week, just like I said.”

Said Cristobal, “I think it’s really important to point out that despite not being at our best and not playing to the standard [against Louisville], at the end of the day, we still had the ball in hand at the 31-yard line with two timeouts with a chance to tie or win the game. There’s a positive in the fact that our players will play hard all the way until the end, that we can dig our way out of stuff. We obviously did too much in a negative way to dig ourselves all the way out, and we need to improve upon those things to get the result we want.”