27 of 30. That is where this one starts.
Not the 401 yards. Not the five touchdowns. The completion rate. Darian Mensah went 27 for 30 on Thursday night in his first start at quarterback for Miami, a 90 percent clip, as the seventh-ranked Hurricanes buried Stanford 45-6.
Since 2021, only two quarterbacks have put that combination together in a single game: 90 percent completions, 400-plus yards, five-plus touchdowns. C.J. Stroud and Dillon Gabriel. Mensah did it in his first outing in a Miami jersey.
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Malachi Toney: 234 yards and three Heisman poses
Toney caught 12 balls for 234 yards, a Miami single-game record for a receiver, and scored three times. He struck the Heisman pose after every one of them. Two of the grabs came in the first half, from 23 and 2 yards. The third went for 47 in the third quarter.
He is coming off a loud freshman year and has picked up exactly where he left off. Mensah now has a receiver who can hurt a defense at every level of the field. Daylyn Upshaw added a five-yard score to make it 28-6 at the half, and Cooper Barkate, another Duke transfer who followed Mensah south, finished a 34-yard play with 11:51 left in the third.
Context makes the scoreline heavier. This was Miami’s biggest season-opening win over an FBS opponent since 2003, when they put 48 on Louisiana Tech. The Hurricanes reached the College Football Playoff national title game last season.
Stanford’s defense never laid a hand on Mensah
No sacks. None. The Cardinal gave up 549 total yards and drop to 1-1 after opening with a win over Hawaii, still without an Atlantic Coast Conference victory. Davis Warren completed 21 of 41 for 214 yards and no touchdowns.
A few Californians walked away with something. Caden High caught six for 92 yards. Benji Blackburn had seven for 52. Charlie Eckhardt pulled off an acrobatic interception in the fourth quarter, though it came off backup Luke Nickel rather than the quarterback who had spent three quarters picking them apart.
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