{"id":444858,"date":"2026-11-02T06:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T06:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444858\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T06:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T06:18:14","slug":"notre-dame-has-one-clear-advantage-over-miami-in-massive-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444858\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame Has One Clear Advantage Over Miami in Massive Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">Saturday night&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/college\/notredame\/football\/where-will-notre-dame-miami-rank-in-first-cfp-poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">showdown<\/a> between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/college\/notredame\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Notre Dame<\/a> and Miami is one of the most anticipated games on the college football schedule this entire year.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/college\/notredame\/football\/notre-dame-miami-showdown-set-early-thoughts-game-of-the-year\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">two powerhouse programs<\/a> with rich histories that are battling for College Football Playoff positioning as the regular season enters its final month.<\/p>\n<p>Miami won the thriller on South Beach last year, but Notre Dame hasn&#8217;t lost to the Hurricanes in South Bend since Jimmy Johnson and the Hurricanes beat Gerry Faust&#8217;s Irish squad 31-13 in 1984.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6e\">As close as the matchup appears to be this coming weekend, there is one area Notre Dame especially needs to exploit if it&#8217;s going to knock off No. 1.<\/p>\n<p>Notre Dame&#8217;s Advantage When Passing vs Miami<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">The bad news for Notre Dame is that CJ Carr hasn&#8217;t looked his best the last two games out.  He missed a couple of throws that would have changed the game at BYU and was rather pedestrian against Navy, completing 19 of 29 pass attempts for 210 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that Carr has a chance to be the difference maker against Miami, as the Hurricanes pass defense has hardly impressed to date.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">For as good as Miami is overall, it struggles in a big way defending the pass.  While it has only allowed 251.9 passing yards against per game, it gives up just over 7.6 yards per pass attempt this year.<\/p>\n<p>If that seems high, it&#8217;s because it is, ranking 84th nationally.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also worth noting that aside a mid-September win at Wake Forest, Miami hasn&#8217;t exactly faced a murderers&#8217; row of opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Examining Notre Dame&#8217;s Passing Attack<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">While it has been far from perfect, Notre Dame&#8217;s passing game has put up impressive numbers to date.  <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not huge on looking at total yards on a season basis, because different games call for different game plans, but instead, how good are you on average when you try a certain thing?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">When passing the ball this year, Notre Dame is averaging 8.3 yards per attempt.  Like Miami, Notre Dame hasn&#8217;t played the toughest of schedules, but it has clearly had success throwing the ball.<\/p>\n<p>That will be a must on Saturday night as it has been what has kept a couple opponents close with Miami so far this season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7d\">Florida State averaged 10.2 yards per attempt when it lost in double-overtime at Miami on October 17.<\/p>\n<p>This past Saturday night, North Carolina took Miami to the wire, averaging 10.0 yards each time it passed, throwing for four scores in a 38-35 loss.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, Florida State and North Carolina are 7- 9 combined this season.<\/p>\n<p>If they can take Miami to the wire, shouldn&#8217;t Notre Dame be able to have similar success, but have more talent in other places as well?<\/p>\n<p>Nick Shepkowski&#8217;s Quick Thoughts<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7n\">For years we&#8217;ve seen Notre Dame set its tone offensively by running the ball and throwing to tight ends.  That got it decently far, but the downfield passing game has needed to grow.<\/p>\n<p>Statistically, it has.<\/p>\n<p>However, has it developed a deeper rotation than it had just a few short weeks ago, when a group of purely gassed wide receivers were unable to be subbed out late in both halves at BYU?<\/p>\n<p>Notre Dame has the offensive line to protect Carr.  Now can the receivers step up in a way that exploits what has been a struggling Miami secondary?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7s\">The answer to that question will very likely hold the answer to whether or not Notre Dame knocks off No. 1 Miami on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" preventdefault:click=\"\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\" on:click=\"q-BuzMUIXO.js#s_lDqay9E5m5g[0]\" q:id=\"7y\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday night&#8217;s showdown between Notre Dame and Miami is one of the most anticipated games on the college&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-444858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444858","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=444858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}