MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. _ During a college football weekend that had already seen its share of upsets, Miami _ bruised after a physical, emotional win in Tallahassee _ took the field against a rested, hungry Georgia Tech team hoping to avoid the same fate that befell the likes of Clemson, Washington State and Louisville.
The Yellow Jackets, meanwhile, were all too ready to knock off the Hurricanes and take sole possession atop the ACC Coastal Division standings.
And Georgia Tech nearly managed that, except for the fact that _ once again _ Miami put together a thrilling, last-second drive. And once again, Darrell Langham was a part of it.
The receiver, who scored the game-winner in Tallahassee last week against Florida State, caught a 28-yard pass from Malik Rosier on fourth-and-10 that set up a 24-yard field goal from Michael Badgley with four seconds left that lifted No. 11 Miami to a 25-24 win over the Yellow Jackets.
With the victory, the Hurricanes have now won 10 games for the first time since 2003-04. They have won five straight to open the season and remain the lone unbeaten team in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
But all of that was in jeopardy for much of the afternoon as Georgia Tech held the lead and answered every time Miami made a big play.
One of the biggest came early in the fourth quarter, when just after Travis Homer scored on a 27-yard run that pulled the Hurricanes within two, the Yellow Jackets tipped Rosier's pass to Chris Herndon, that if caught, would have tied the game at 24.
Before that, Tech's defense did a solid job of keeping Miami's offense off balance, especially throughout the first half.
During the better part of the first two quarters, the Hurricanes managed just 196 yards, 77 of those coming on the final drive of the second quarter that ended when Homer caught a 17-yard scoring pass from Rosier that pulled the Hurricanes within 14-13.
But before that? It was all Georgia Tech, the Yellow Jackets building a 14-3 lead on the strength of a 5-yard scoring run from J.J. Green and then a 3-yard scoring grab by Green from Tech quarterback TaQuon Marshall.
And while Miami (5-0, 3-0) seemed to have grabbed some of the momentum back with that late first-half score from Rosier to Homer _ who was making his first start in place of injured running back Mark Walton _ a head-scratching opening play in the third quarter put the Hurricanes in a bigger hole.
Down a point and set to kick off to Georgia Tech (3-2, 2-1), which won the toss and deferred to the second half, the Hurricanes opted for an onside kick.
But instead of catching the Yellow Jackets by surprise, Badgley's kick didn't seem to go the necessary 10 yards and as it rolled across the turf, Tech's Lamont Simmons picked up the ball and returned it 42 yards for a touchdown.
That put the Yellow Jackets up 21-13 and silenced the stunned crowd of 55,799 that couldn't quite grasp what had just unfolded.
It also created that odd 8-point deficit that put the Hurricanes in the position of having to go for two on Homer's late score.
Ultimately, though, none of that mattered as another last-second drive gave Miami another win.
