Two weeks ago Miami looked like a team searching for answers. On Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium, the Hurricanes looked like a problem no one in the ACC wants to solve. No. 16 Miami destroyed NC State 41-7 on Senior Day, improving to 8-2 and keeping both a slim ACC title path and a very real College Football Playoff case alive.
1. Miami has depth on both sides of the ball
The first takeaway is about depth. Miami did not just beat a solid NC State team. The Hurricanes overwhelmed a Wolfpack offense that came in ranked No. 2 in the ACC in total offense in league games at 454 yards per outing. Miami held that group to 149 total yards and only 29 yards on the ground.
Safety Jakobe Thomas set the tone with two first quarter interceptions, taking one back for a touchdown. The defensive line rotated freely and kept its edge all afternoon, forcing eight of NC State’s first 10 drives to end in either a punt or a pick. Even when Miami emptied the bench in the fourth quarter, the standard did not drop. This was a very good sign after losing DB Keionte Scott to a lower right leg injury.
Depth showed up on the offense as well. Freshman Girard Pringle Jr., who started the year fourth on the depth chart, delivered his first 100-yard game with 116 yards on 17 carries, more than doubling his season rushing total. CharMar Brown punched in a short touchdown and several backs handled work in a 214-yard team rushing effort.
2. The offensive creativity appears once more
The second takeaway is that this offense is having fun again, and it shows in the play calls. Carson Beck completed 21 of 27 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns with no turnovers, his second straight sharp outing after a 38-10 win over Syracuse the previous week. Miami piled up 581 yards and scored on drives of 77, 66, 85 and 88 yards.
The creativity popped off the screen. Malachi Toney threw a 44-yard pass to JoJo Trader on a trick play, mirroring what Hurricanes saw last week. In the win over Syracuse, Francis Mauigoa rushed for a touchdown — which was essentially a screen pass — and Toney threw a touchdown to Beck. Opening up the bag of tricks is a promising sign moving forward, especially after fans were clamoring for it last month.
3. Miami is clearly the best team in the ACC team
The third takeaway is about ceiling. Miami entered the weekend ranked No. 16 in the AP poll and No. 15 in the College Football Playoff rankings, the highest of any ACC team. At 8-2 overall and 4-2 in the conference, the Hurricanes sit behind Georgia Tech, Virginia, SMU and Pitt in the conference race and need a specific chain of upsets over the final two weeks to reach Charlotte.
Those long odds do not change what Saturday said about who has the top-end talent in the ACC. Miami owns a win over Notre Dame, plus blowouts of Stanford, USF, Florida Syracuse and now NC State. The losses are a three-point home defeat to Louisville and an overtime road loss at SMU, which are not resume-killers in the 12-team playoff era.
In a conference crowded with good teams and complicated tiebreakers, Miami's 41-7 demolition of NC State looked like something different. It looked like the kind of performance a playoff team puts on tape in mid-November. If the Hurricanes win out and the bracket leaves them home, nights like this will be Exhibit A in the argument that the ACC's best team never got its chance.