No. 3 Miami didn’t cruise past Florida State on Saturday night. It escaped.
The Hurricanes needed double overtime, a two-point conversion and a pair of defensive stops at the end of the game to outlast the Seminoles 43-35 at Hard Rock Stadium. Miami moved to 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the ACC, but it got there after letting a 28-21 lead slip away in the final minutes of regulation and surviving a wild finish.
Florida State made Miami work from the start and never really let the game settle into the kind of comfortable rhythm the Hurricanes had shown in their first five contests. The Seminoles finished with 443 yards, including 305 through the air, and Ashton Daniels kept answering nearly every punch Miami threw. He completed 15 of 28 passes for 298 yards, four touchdowns and one interception, and he also ran for a score.
Miami still piled up 583 yards and held the ball for more than 37 minutes, but the defense that came in as the nation’s top scoring unit had a very different night than the one it had built through the first month of the season. The Hurricanes had allowed just 49 total points all year before kickoff. Florida State matched almost that much in one game alone.
The turning point in regulation came after a second-half surge that kept flipping the script. The teams were tied 14-14 at halftime, then Florida State grabbed a 21-14 lead in the third quarter on Daniels’ 28-yard touchdown pass to Quintrevion Wisner. Miami answered with a 3-yard touchdown run from Javian Mallory, and Darian Mensah put the Hurricanes back in front with a 3-yard touchdown to Elijah Lofton that made it 28-21 with just under three minutes left.
Then came the play that forced overtime. Four seconds later, Daniels launched a 75-yard touchdown to Duce Robinson, tying the game at 28. Robinson finished with five catches for 113 yards and two touchdowns, and the Hurricanes’ coverage broke down badly as he got past Xavier Lucas and a diving Omar Thornton.
Miami had already scored first on Mark Fletcher Jr.’s 7-yard touchdown run, but Mallory ended up becoming the back who changed the shape of the game late. The freshman finished with 108 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries, including a 25-yard score on Miami’s first overtime snap. That run answered Florida State’s opening overtime touchdown and pushed the game into a second overtime.
Mensah was central all night, too. He finished 23 of 34 for 326 yards, three touchdowns and one interception, with the pick standing as his first of the season after he came in with 15 touchdowns and no interceptions.
His connection with Malachi Toney was one of Miami’s biggest advantages. Toney caught 11 passes for 154 yards and two touchdowns, including a 3-yard scoring grab in the second overtime.
Toney also delivered the finishing blow in a different way. Under the second-overtime rules, Miami went for two after his touchdown, and he took the snap and threw the conversion to Cooper Barkate to make it 43-35.
Florida State still had one more chance to extend the game, and for a moment it looked like it had done it. Daniels connected with Micahi Danzy on a 36-yard touchdown in the second overtime, but the play came off the board because of an offensive holding penalty on Xavier Chaplin.
Miami then backed the Seminoles up before Daniels threw into the end zone again and Bryce Fitzgerald came down with the interception to end it. The play went to replay and the ruling stood, though it wasn’t immediately clear who had the ball.
Fitzgerald had earlier left with an upper-body injury.
The game carried its share of physical moments, too. Zechariah Poyser was ejected for targeting in the first quarter after hitting Daniels, who went to the injury tent briefly before returning. Florida State running back Ousmane Kromah was carted off with an ankle injury in the second quarter and finished with 44 yards on 14 carries.
For Miami, the result keeps the record perfect. But this was not the clean, suffocating performance the Hurricanes had delivered in their first five games. Florida State pushed them all the way to the edge, and Miami found out what it looks like when an unbeaten team has to survive instead of simply control.
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