Miami's smoke-and-mirrors routine gets another act against Florida State

For all the hustle and bustle of a Saturday afternoon, any reasonably close football game depends on about four or five games. Suppose a big third-down completion had floated just out of the receiver's reach. Suppose a crucial mistake in the fourth quarter ended up back in the hands of the offense. Imagine a field goal bouncing off the upright. These hinge points are not difficult to find.

Miami has spent the last two months on the high side in each of these crucial points. In the Squid Game of the 2024 college football season, Miami (7-0) put its head down and put one foot in front of the other, watching other top-10 teams — Clemson, Alabama, Tennessee and so on — fell and fell back.

It's a good strategy: keep your head while everyone around you is losing their head. But Miami hasn't quite gotten its business under control in recent weeks. Sure, the Hurricanes began 2024 by outscoring their first four opponents by an average of nearly 40 points. But since Miami reached the core of the ACC conference schedule, the situation has gotten significantly worse.

Start with one of the wildest plays of the year, a supposed “Hail Mary” touchdown that would have given Virginia Tech an instant upset win:

The verdict: Receiver out of bounds, game over, 38-34 Miami. About getting as close to winning as possible and still losing.

Next up is a visit to Cal, including the “College GameDay” festival. The Golden Bears put Miami in a stranglehold, threw the Canes into the ditch and took a 25-point lead in the third quarter. Miami quarterback Cam Ward then went crazy and led the Canes to a huge 39-38 victory. One could see that as a testament to the team's resilience, but one could also question how exactly it is that a top-10 team falls 25 points behind a team that is now 3-4 in first place.

And then came Louisville, where the Canes benefited from two significant calls, starting with an uncalled holding penalty that allowed Ward to fling a 63-yard pass that led to a go-ahead touchdown:

Later, Ward lost control of the football and Louisville returned it for what looked like a touchdown:

Further review revealed that Ward's arm moved forward, making it an incomplete pass rather than a fumble.

You have the idea. If the Hurricanes were a cat, they would have already burned most of their lives. Every team benefits from calls over the course of a season, but when you keep making several crucial calls (or non-calls) your way, you're living a charmed life.

Perhaps this is all a karmic compensation for last year, when Miami suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in recent college football history, missing a touchdown and later forfeiting what should have been a kneel-down at the end of the game:

Or maybe Miami is just a team in constant chaos. Who is to say that?

To hear third-year head coach Mario Cristobal say it, it's all part of the plan. “People always talk about how in the first phase of a program, or the first year, when you have to repeat things, you're going to have to take really heavy losses this year,” he said earlier this week. “And then in the second year, you're more competitive, and some of them are close, and you win some and lose a few. And then you start winning, sometimes even a little. And then over time you evolve into a more sustainable, multi-year program, right?”

So far, living on a knife edge in 2024 hasn't hurt Miami. The Canes play in the ACC, a remarkable reflection of a Power Four conference where it's possible to breeze through an entire season's schedule without playing a ranked team once. So far, Miami has enjoyed exactly that – no Clemson, no Pitt, no SMU, just a long line of mid- to lower-tier teams.

This weekend, Miami faces the zombified corpse of Florida State, which shuffles into Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday, a desiccated shell of the team that posted an undefeated regular season and won the ACC Championship last year. The Noles are 1-6 and showing absolutely no signs of life… but a season-clinching win over Miami could ease some of the tension in Tallahassee.

“I don’t think so, and I can say this as a player, we never looked at the record of anyone we played against,” Cristobal said of the Florida State-Miami rivalry. “Whatever a team's record is in this rivalry,” you're going to get the best version of them and they're going to get the best version of you, and that's what makes the game so incredibly intense and physical, and that's why so many players come here to take part in this game.”

Certainly Miami faces a bigger challenge later in the season; “get votes too” Schools like Duke and Syracuse are still up for grabs. And then there's the ACC Championship, where No. 9 Clemson might be waiting.

Pollsters are already emphasizing that Miami's schedule is weak; Two teams with just one loss are already ahead of the Canes, and more could follow. A single loss should sneak Miami into the bottom of the playoffs, but two losses? Probably not.

The magic continues this weekend for Miami. “Canes fans have to hope for a little more edge and a little less Twitter highlight drama.” It's the best path forward.