It was a day filled with celebration for the Miami Hurricanes program on Saturday. It was homecoming and the Grand Marshal was Jim Kelly. The game was a “green out” in honor of Kelly and #KellyTough. Also at halftime, the ‘Canes honored Russell Maryland and the late Jerome Brown and inducted them into the Hurricanes ring of honor.
The party didn’t stop there, either. It actually escalated once the Hurricanes stepped out on the field and took it to the Tar Heels, winning 47=20. The leader of that party? Duke Johnson.
Johnson, who is now second on Miami’s all-time rushing list after passing Edgerrin James, finished the game with 177 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries. He also added 49 receiving yards and a touchdown through the air to his total. Duke has 229 total yards, and to put that in perspective, North Carolina finished with 258. That’s including garbage time yards and that’s Duke not playing the entire fourth quarter. That’s good.
The game started off the same way the Virginia Tech ended. With Miami running the ball, and running it effectively. Johnson took turns with Joe Yearby and Gus Edwards on the first drive and it resulted in a 13 play 84-yard touchdown drive that ended with a Duke Johnson touchdown from the one-yard line.
Miami’s offensive line was a position to watch against North Carolina because of all the injuries suffered, especially to the right side of the ball, but the big guys responded and played well without Ereck Flowers, Taylor Gadbois and Kc McDermott. Trevor Darling and Nick Linder had nice games and the future is bright for those two true freshman.
Yearby finished with 92 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries, while Edwards had 22 yards on 3 carries before being taken to the locker room because of an ankle injury.
Not everything went great for the offensive line, however. Sunny Odogwu got beat badly on the edge by Mikey Bart and Bart sacked Kaaya, who fumbled the ball and then the fumble was scooped up by Cayson Collins and taken for the only Tar Heels score of the first half. That fumble return came after a bad snap by the North Carolina long snapper that resulted in a Miami safety. After a missed extra point, the Hurricanes had a 9-6 lead midway through the second quarter.
After that, the floodgates opened.
With 5:17 left in the first half, Kaaya connected with Clive Walford from 14 yards out for a touchdown. A couple of minutes later, Duke Johnson struck again.
Starting the drive from their own 10 yard line, offensive coordinator James Coley handed the ball off to Johnson, and good blocking and a broken tackle later, Duke ran for 90-yards on the UNC defense and got his second touchdown of the game. This was a play that showed everyone why he’s so special and why he’s going to be the best running back that has ever worn a “U” on the side of his helmet.
Miami went up 23-6 after that Duke Johnson run, but they wanted to put some more points on the board before the half was over. A 7 play 56-yard drive ended up with a beautiful strike by Kaaya to Walford on the corner of the end zone for a touchdown. It was the second touchdown of the game for Walford and the sixth of the year for the senior tight end.
Kaaya didn’t turn the ball over again and finished with 189 yards and three touchdowns, while completing 11 of his 17 pass attempts. The true freshman now has 20 touchdown passes on the year. Walford also had a nice game and led Miami with 89 yards and six receptions, while also putting up those two touchdowns on the board.
The second half started off the way it should’ve: with a Duke Johnson touchdown. This time, it came off a beautiful screen play call by James Coley. It was a 37-yard touchdown reception for Johnson and it gave Miami a 37-6 lead and it was pretty much over at that point.
The last touchdown of the game from Miami came on a Joseph Yearby one-yard touchdown run midway through the third quarter. That drive came after Tyriq McCord got to the quarterback and then recovered a botched snap on a punt deep into North Carolina territory.
The defense was stellar for the second straight game and it was the first time all season that the defense followed up a good performance with a great one. The North Carolina offense was a top-40 offense coming into this game, but the Miami defense locked them down completely.
The Tar Heels finished with 258 total yards and only had 57 at the half. Oh, and, remember that really bad run defense from early in the season? Yeah, Miami only allowed 6 rushing yards against UNC. The botched snaps and sacks help that number, but still, that’s insane.
Marquise Williams was a guy that I was worried about coming into this game and he had a quiet game. Willams threw for 191 yards on 32 attempts. One of those intercepted by Deon Bush. Williams’ only touchdowns came on the ground, as he was able to punch in 2 short-yardage touchdowns against a Miami defense that had already lost interest after an early blowout.
Denzel Perryman was a stud all over the field again and he kept destroying guys in the hole. So badly, that he got me to call him a transformer during the game. And I love transformers. Perryman led the team in tackles with 11 and also got to the quarterback for his second sack of the season. Artie Burns, Corn Elder, Bush and McCord also got to Williams on Saturday.
The team (especially the defense) seems to be hitting their stride at the right time and it has everyone really excited. If you’re not excited, you’re probably involved in the banner flying (which are really dumb, by the way.) The team is playing well, and hell, they’re even being coached well right now. There are things to improve on but with 14 days to prepare for a very good Florida State team, we should have a battle on our hands on November 15th at Sun Life Stadium.