MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami beat its archrival \u2014 and staked a claim to moving atop the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2002.<\/p>\n
Darian Mensah threw for 326 yards and three touchdowns, the last of them a 3-yarder to Malachi Toney in the second overtime, and No. 3 Miami held on to beat archrival Florida State 43-35 in a back-and-forth classic on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what great teams do, find a way to win,\u201d Mensah said.<\/p>\n
No. 1 Georgia lost to Auburn<\/a> and No. 2 Notre Dame lost to BYU<\/a>, making Saturday the first instance of the nation\u2019s two top-ranked teams falling on the same regular-season day since Nov. 17, 2012, according to Sportradar.<\/p>\n That clears a path for Miami to be No. 1 when the new poll comes out Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a good enough sample size of 2026 to know that’s absolutely insignificant and irrelevant with the changing of the guard from week to week,\u201d Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. \u201cIt just has no value to our processes and whatnot. I’ll focus on the real \u20181\u2019 that’s important \u2014 the 1-0.\u201d<\/p>\n Toney had 11 catches for 154 yards and two scores, plus threw a 2-point conversion pass to Cooper Barkate after his OT score for Miami (6-0, 4-0 Atlantic Coast Conference).<\/p>\n Bryce Fitzgerald \u2014 who left the game with injury early before returning \u2014 sealed the win with an end-zone interception for the Hurricanes on the final play, amid claims from Florida State (3-4, 1-3) that it should have been ruled a touchdown.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was a touchdown … but we’re not the ones out there calling the shots,\u201d said Florida State quarterback Ashton Daniels, who threw for 298 yards and four scores. \u201cWe can’t control the decisions and all that. We don’t understand it. It hurts, but there’s nothing we can do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mensah completed 23 of 34 passes for Miami, which has now won seven of its last 10 games against the Seminoles. Javian Mallory rushed for 108 yards and two touchdowns, including one in the first OT and Mark Fletcher Jr. added a rushing score for the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n Duce Robinson had a pair of TD catches late for Florida State, including a 75-yarder that tied the game with 2:49 left in regulation and a 20-yard score to open the first overtime. Robinson was the intended receiver on the last play as well, but the Hurricanes found a way.<\/p>\n \u201cThis rivalry is bigger than me,\u201d Toney said. \u201cI haven’t been alive for half of it, but I’m still playing for the standard that the generations before me created.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida State appeared to give itself a chance when Daniels connected on a fourth-and-21, 36-yard heave that would have made it 43-41 \u2014 only to have the play called back by holding.<\/p>\n Florida State disagreed with that call as well. \u201cGo watch the film,\u201d said embattled Florida State coach Mike Norvell, whose team is now 10-22 in its last 32 games.<\/p>\n The next play was an even longer heave into a maze of bodies in the end zone, called an interception before going to review. Fitzgerald was ruled to have come down with the ball, and the Hurricanes stormed the field in celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the start of football, if it’s a tie it goes to the receiver,\u201d Norvell said. \u201cI guess they had a different angle.\u201d<\/p>\n The entire game saw one team going up by a TD, then the other team coming back to tie it. <\/p>\n Miami had leads of 7-0 and 14-7; FSU tied the game both times. FSU went up 21-14; Miami answered to tie that time. The Hurricanes went back on top; FSU answered. FSU scored first in overtime; Miami answered.<\/p>\n In the end, Florida State \u2014 which lost top rusher Ousmane Kromah late in the first half with a left leg injury \u2014 ran out of answers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe overcame the adversity,\u201d Toney said. \u201cThat says a lot about our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida State: The Seminoles\u2019 loss last week at Louisville was sparked by a fourth-down stop near the goal line, and Florida State had two such fourth-down misfires from inside the Miami 5 on Saturday. In the end, not kicking field goals in those situations proved costly.<\/p>\n Miami: Mensah had gone 153 passes to start his Miami career without throwing an interception, a streak that ended when he tried to force one to Barkate in the end zone during the third quarter. Ashlynd Barker made the interception for Florida State, preserving what was then a 14-14 tie.<\/p>\n Florida State: Host Clemson on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n Miami: Host Pitt on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami beat its archrival \u2014 and staked a claim to moving atop the AP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,143,28,30,29,57,110],"class_list":["post-431011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-sports","tag-college-football","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}