Canes Rewind: A Look Back at the Win over Stanford

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Each week this season, we’ll take a look at the game that was for the Hurricanes.

Here are some key storylines, numbers of note and quotes from Miami’s 42-7 win over ACC foe Stanford on Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium.

After the win, Miami improved to 6-1 overall and 2-1 in conference play. The Hurricanes also dropped a spot to No. 10 in the AP Top 25. The Cardinal, meanwhile, fell to 3-5 overall and are now 2-3 in ACC play.

The Recap

For the first time this season, the Hurricanes found themselves in need of a bounce-back performance.

After enduring their first loss of the season last week against Louisville, Miami’s coaches and players stressed the need to execute, to clean up their mistakes and to get back to playing the kind of football they know they’re capable of playing ahead of their next game, a conference matchup against Stanford.

And though the Cardinal jumped to an early lead, the Hurricanes rallied, their defense was dominant, running back Mark Fletcher Jr. had another big performance and ultimately, Miami got back to its winning ways.

The Hurricanes scored on five of their six second-half possessions, tallied 42 unanswered points and a big win over Stanford in the first meeting between the two programs.

“Certainly proud of the way our guys just stuck with it after starting on the offensive side of the ball, starting a little bit sluggishly. Just maintaining composure,” Miami head coach Mario Cristobal said. “The defense did a phenomenal job after the first drive to shut down the opponent and give us an opportunity to get back in it. Closed out the first half with a scoring drive and that certainly built some momentum. Came out with great defense, great special teams and just started clicking and started playing more Miami Hurricane football.”

After Stanford scored on its opening possession, Miami was able to tie the game late in the first half after a methodical 15-play, 71-yard drive that ended when CJ Daniels made a dazzling catch in the corner of the end zone and Carter Davis converted on the extra point.

The Hurricanes took the lead for good on their first possession of the second half when Fletcher scored his first touchdown of the day on a 1-yard run that capped a 6-play, 40-yard drive.

Miami wouldn’t look back after that.

With 3:53 left in the third, Hurricanes linebacker Wesley Bissainthe picked off Stanford quarterback Ben Gulbranson and returned it 32 yards to put Miami inside the Cardinal 3-yard line.

One play later, Fletcher scored his second touchdown of the day and pushed Miami’s lead to 21-7 after the extra point.

Miami’s defense forced another turnover on Stanford’s very next possession, this time with Xavier Lucas intercepting Gulbranson, and again, the Hurricanes offense capitalized.

Fletcher then had carries of 12 yards, 10 yards, and 16 yards to get Miami in the red zone and he capped the drive with a 7-yard run for his third touchdown.

The Hurricanes added two more scores – a 17-yard touchdown run by Jordan Lyle and a 3-yard touchdown run by Girard Pringle, Jr. – to cap the scoring in the fourth quarter and more than a few of Miami’s reserves were able to log some quality snaps.

“I just thought the defense, the way they took over the game, as physical as they were [and] the field position given to us by special teams in the return game, certainly all those things – albeit the 4^th-and-1 we didn’t make – we had an opportunity to score on seven straight drives,” Cristobal said. “Certainly, a massive turnaround from the previous quarters of our previous game and the first quarter and a half of football tonight.”

Numbers to Know

70 – Yards allowed by the Miami defense after Stanford’s opening drive. The Cardinal totaled 74 yards on their first possession and took a quick 7-0 lead. But Miami’s defense tightened after that, and Stanford finished with a total of just 144 yards and eight first downs.

106 – Rushing yards totaled by Fletcher against Stanford. It marked his third 100-yard performance on the season after he had 120 yards against USF and 116 yards against Florida. His three touchdowns on Saturday night were a career-high and Fletcher now has a team-high 552 rushing yards on the year.

6 – Tackles for loss totaled by the Miami defense. Six different Hurricanes – David Blay, Jr., Lucas, Armondo Blount, Isaiah Taylor, Donta Simpson, and Ethan O’Connor – all recorded a TFL.

75 – Completion percentage for quarterback Carson Beck. He was 21 of 28 for 189 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions. On the season, Beck has completed 73.3 percent of his passes. That ranks third in the nation behind only Julian Sayin of Ohio State and Carlos Del Rio-Wilson of Marshall.

138 – All-purpose yards for freshman receiver Malachi Toney. Toney totaled 72 yards on punt returns, had 52 receiving yards and 13 rushing yards.

Quotable

“Losing is the worst possible thing, and it absolutely sucks, right? It’s the worst feeling ever. But at the same time, sometimes it happens and it’s not about what happened then, it’s how you respond to it. … What I always try to remember and lean on is that I’m not out there alone. … There’s 21 other guys out there with me and I can lean on them. They’re going to war with me every single day at practice. Once we get to the game, this is one big family. We’re all in this together with the same goal and the same opportunities each and every day. So, for us as a team, it was huge to be able to come out here and get this type of win. And honestly, moving forward, [it’s about] continuing to put in the work and continuing to be about action and not just talk about what we’re going to do, but go out and execute and be about action. That’s what we need to do to be able to execute [and] to see the rest of our season [through] and achieve our goals.”

– Quarterback Carson Beck, on what the win over Stanford meant to him and the Hurricanes, given the loss to Louisville

“We know what we could do, man. That first half, we didn’t come out as fast like we wanted to. We came in at halftime, the coaches made some adjustments, and we went out there and like I said, we just continued to execute the game plan we had, and everything took care of itself.”

– Linebacker Wesley Bissainthe, on how the team responded after the first half

“We’ve been looking forward to getting him involved in the return game and sometimes, you’ve got to be careful in choosing certain schemes and certain calls due to some of the things that you see on the other side and some of the things that you have to audible to on the other side as well. But the opportunity was there tonight. We trust him a lot. And we saw what you saw: an explosive guy that is always ready to make a play for his teammates; a guy that is fearless; a guy that not only wants the ball [but] wants to throw his body around and block. Just a complete team player and certainly a game changer.”

– Head coach Mario Cristobal, on the play of freshman receiver Malachi Toney

“We just executed, started executing. No [real] changes made. Defense played a hell of a game, man. They made stops for us all night. We just had to keep on pounding, keep on pounding the ball.”

– Running back Mark Fletcher Jr., on how Miami’s running game was able to produce on Saturday against Stanford

“It was just a good experience today, just staying ready so I have to be ready. But the coaching staff, whatever they need from me, that’s what I’ll be able to do for them. It’s not really about me; it’s more about the team.”

– Receiver Tony Johnson, on getting extended playing time against Stanford and totaling a team-high 69 receiving yards

Up Next

For just the second time this season, the Hurricanes are set to hit the road and this time, they’ll actually be leaving the state of Florida.

Miami is set to travel to Dallas next week to face off against SMU in another crucial ACC game.

The Mustangs, who earned a berth in the College Football Playoff last season, are coming off a 13-12 loss to Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons converted on a last-second, 50-yard field goal to secure the win and snap SMU’s 20-game conference win streak.

Mustangs quarterback Kevin Jennings has completed 66 percent of his passes on the season and thrown for 2,119 yards and 17 touchdowns, while Romello Brinson – a transfer from Miami – leads the Mustangs (5-3, 3-1) receiving corps with 37 catches for 515 yards.

SMU is averaging 31.4 points per game, while holding opponents to an average of just 21.4 points.

Miami and SMU have met just once, in 1965. The Mustangs won that game in Dallas 7-3.