The No. 6 Miami Hurricanes took down the Central Michigan Chippewas at Hard Rock Stadium on their first Saturday game of the season, winning handily 52-3.
Darian Mensah continued his strong case for the Heisman Trophy with another stellar performance, posting a statline of 23/27 passing for 338 yards and three touchdowns, before being pulled with four minutes left in the third quarter.
His completion percentage currently sits at 88.7%, the best in the country among qualifying quarterbacks.
Following tonight’s performance, Mensah became the first FBS quarterback in 30 years to have more passing touchdowns (14) than incompletions (12). Mensah has now finished 22 games in a row with a passing touchdown, good for the longest active streak in the FBS.
On the receiving end, Malachi Toney and Cooper Barkate led the charge with 120 and 47 yards, respectively and a touchdown each.
“We’ve done a lot of great things so far, but as [Mario] Cristobal says we still have a long way to go,” Mensah said.
It wasn’t all pretty for Miami, as the Hurricanes were penalized 10 times for 79 yards — even trailing to CMU after getting stopped on its opening drive and allowing the Chippewas to kick a 49-yard field goal to begin the scoring.
“Penalties were an issue,” said Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal. “They’re something we have to work on and improve.”
From then on, it was all Hurricanes.
With starting running back Mark Fletcher Jr. out with an injury, true freshman Javian Mallory earned the start, quickly punching in a touchdown from four yards out to put Miami on top 7-3.
Mensah quickly got into his groove, picking apart the Chippewa defense en route to a 11-yard fade route touchdown to Daylyn Upshaw.
The Chippewas trotted out three different quarterbacks against UM, rotating between Angel Flores, Glasser and Marcus Beamon. The three signal callers combined for a statline of 21-of-26 for 137 yards and three turnovers.
Three plays into Glasser’s first drive, Central coughed up the ball on its own 27, as the ball was recovered by Canes defensive back JJ Dunnigan.
Miami capitalized on the good field position as Mensah tossed a perfect pass to fellow Heisman candidate Toney, who secured a spectacular catch over the defending linebacker for an eight-yard score.
“Nothing surprises me with [Toney],” Mensah said. “The kid is special”.
The Hurricanes ended the half up 35-3 with a 13-yard touchdown strike to Barkate and a five-yard scamper from Mensah as he pranced over a defender for his first rushing score of the year.
Coming out of the half, Miami had its most interesting score of the season before pulling its starters.
Offensive lineman Jamal Meriweather scored a touchdown after jumping on a Jordan Lyle fumble into the endzone, pushing the score to 42-3.
The defense held strong throughout the rest of the game as well, not surrendering another point.
As Miami coasted to its fourth win of the season, running back Chris Wheatley-Humphrey put on a show. The Hurricanes sixth running back on the depth chart heading into the season, Wheatley-Humphrey led the team with 104 rushing yards on 11 carries — capped off by a 35-yard touchdown run.
When speaking about Wheatley-Humphrey’s performance, Cristobal said, “Credit to him man, that guy really works his butt off, really good football player”
“I dedicate it to my running back room,” Wheatley-Humphrey said.“They pour so much love into me so when I got my chance I had to do it for them.”
Miami will get back to work at Clemson next Saturday in Death Valley for its biggest test of the season thus far.
Saturday’s game against the Tigers will start at 7:30 p.m. and will air on ABC.