Miami Hurricanes quarterback Carson Beck commented Monday night on the game-ending interception he threw in a 27-21 loss to the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
Speaking to reporters after Miami fell just short in its pursuit of its first national titles since 2001, Beck said, “For it to end like that is hard. It’s really tough, especially to battle the way that we did in the second half. To have a chance to win at the end, it says a lot about us. But to lose it—it really hurts.”
With a 35-yard field goal, Indiana extended its lead from three to six with 1:42 remaining, meaning the Canes would have one final chance to march down the field and win it all with a touchdown.
Aided in part by a roughing the passer penalty, Beck got Miami into Indiana territory at the 47-yard line with less than a minute left, but he made a game-clinching mistake shortly thereafter.
In an attempt to hit wide receiver Keelan Marion with a deep ball, Beck threw into double coverage, and Indiana cornerback Jamari Sharpe undercut the route and intercepted it to essentially end the game.
Beck won a pair of national championships at Georgia as a backup in 2021 and 2022, but after missing the CFP in 2023 and having an injury knock him out of the 2024 CFP, Beck transferred to Miami as a sixth-year senior in hopes of winning a national title as a starter.
For much of the season, it looked like Beck would not have that opportunity, as the Hurricanes lost a pair of regular-season games and did not even make it into the ACC Championship Game.
However, the CFP selection committee somewhat controversially picked Miami to leapfrog Notre Dame in the rankings, making Miami the final at-large team in the CFP field.
That proved to be a great decision on the committee’s part, as the 10th-ranked Hurricanes beat No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 6 Ole Miss en route to the natty.
While there are no moral victories when a team gets that close to championship glory, Beck and the Canes can perhaps take some solace in the fact that they gave Indiana a tougher game than any other team.
In addition to winning most of their regular-season games in blowout fashion, the Hoosiers beat Alabama 38-3 in the CFP quarterfinals and Oregon 56-22 in the CFP semifinals.
Miami was just one score away from pulling off the upset, and while it didn’t come to fruition, the season still yielded a far better result for the Hurricanes than most could have imagined, particularly when they were sitting with a 6-2 record.