Two halves, two completely different teams
Miami led 24-7 at the break in Winston-Salem and had outgained Wake Forest 303 yards to 88. Numbers like that normally settle a football game. They did not settle this one.
The fifth-ranked Hurricanes pushed the margin to 31-7 midway through the third quarter, then stopped functioning in every phase. Wake Forest played the rest of the night to a 23-9 advantage and cut the deficit to eleven. A punt return to around midfield would have made it genuinely uncomfortable, except a holding flag wiped it out. Miami’s final points came from a safety, conceded when Wake Forest held in their own end zone. It finished 33-20.
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Mensah opens the night 24 for 24
Darian Mensah went 30 of 34 for 220 yards and three touchdowns. The raw line reads efficient and still undersells what happened early, because his first 24 attempts were all completions, a run that matched Carson Beck’s Miami record for consecutive completions to start a game.
Malachi Toney caught 12 of those balls for 114 yards and a score. Mark Fletcher carried 16 times for 85 yards and another. The opening drive told the story Miami wanted: twelve plays, 94 yards, finished with a throw over the middle to Joshua Moore. Wake Forest responded with a twelve-play, 75-yard drive of their own, and that was the first warning that Friday was not going to be a formality.
The price of the win
Marty Brown broke off a 32-yard run to the one-yard line in the second quarter and did not get up properly. He was carted to the locker room with what looked like a significant knee injury. Fletcher finished the drive for 21-7, and Miami added a field goal before the half after some sloppy clock management.
There was something to keep on defence. Three sacks, steady pressure that pushed Gio Lopez off his spot, and a series of holding calls drawn by the edge rush. Miami are 3-0 and they head into the rest of the ACC schedule with the same question they carried into Winston-Salem, which is whether a team that dominant for thirty minutes can stay awake for sixty.
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