This crucial stat shows Miami vs FSU will be unstoppable force vs immovable object

​Most of the narrative surrounding Saturday's Miami-FSU game is how the Hurricanes top-10 run defense will match up with the Seminoles rushing offense, which is ranked second in the country.

There is a lot of data out there that supports the Hurricanes defense — PFF has FSU's run-block success as 60t, which means the Seminoles struggle to get big gains between the tackles. But there's one area that can be best described as strength on strength — 3rd down success rate.

The Hurricanes' defense has the third-best 3rd-down success rate in the country, holding opponents to just a 25.5% success rate on third downs. FSU's offense has the 2nd-best third-down success rate in the nation, converting 63.3% on its third downs.

​Keeping the Seminoles behind the sticks

For Miami's defense to win third downs, they must win first down. The more situations where the Hurricanes can force Seminoles quarterback Tommy Castellanos to throw, the better. Now Castellanos' running ability provides its own challenges, but if FSU is facing second-and-long situations consistently, it's going to eliminate some of what they want to do. 

That means keeping FSU in second-and-long type situations and forcing the Seminoles to work harder to get to a third down that's manageable and one that will allow them to open up the playbook.  FSU has kept their average third-down distance right under six yards (5.98) and, with the Seminoles' explosive running game, they are more than happy to navigate those third-and-mediums. 

Miami has kept opponents average third-down at 7.61 yards. Putting FSU in 3rd-and-8 or longer is a good spot to be because the Seminoles are going to have to throw and that allows Miami to spy on Castellanos and focus on using the four-man rush to collapse the pocket.

Josh Pate also touched on this in his Miami-FSU preview, pointing out that the Hurricanes' defense has stopped running games by getting to the backfield early. 

"Florida State right now, 6.7 yards per rush, that's really good," Pate said. "Miami, though, 21 percent of the runs against that defense have gone for zero yards or less. That's one out of every five times you run against them, you're getting tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage."

Winning first down and causing negative plays in the backfield will keep Miami out of dangerous situations. It sounds simple, but FSU has rushed for at least 230 yards and three touchdowns in each of its first four games. Nothing will be easy on Saturday night.