Three takeaways from No. 3 Miami’s 28–22 win over No. 18 Florida State on Saturday night.
Malachi Toney can make it to New York
There was a lot of attention paid to Miami quarterback Carson Beck before the season kicked off and to defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. in the past month as he’s turned into a terror off the edge.
Both were really good against the Seminoles in Tallahassee, with Beck throwing for 240 yards and four touchdowns while Bain forced pressure quite consistently.
But neither are the real star of this Miami team—that’s wide receiver Malachi Toney.
You’re going to hear about him being young enough to be a senior in high school until the end of 2025, but the bottom line is the true freshman is not just one of the best players in the country right now—he has a legitimate shot at making it to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. He notched seven catches for 107 yards and two scores against the rival Noles and was easily the best player on the field. He’s seemingly open on every other play and, even if he makes a catch in traffic, Toney is capable of weaving through defenders to find the end zone.
After big games against Notre Dame and, now, Florida State, in prime-time broadcasts, there’s a new wideout in Coral Gables, Fla., who everybody in college football won’t stop talking about.
Florida State can still rally this season but needs a better Tommy Castellanos
The luster from that upset of Alabama in the opener has worn off quickly thanks to back-to-back losses for Mike Norvell’s team. While you can probably explain away a tough road loss in overtime to Virginia (which looks capable of making it to Charlotte now) and simply running into a better team in Miami, the Seminoles are clearly going to be a group that will rise and fall based on the play of their quarterback, Tommy Castellanos.
He threw for 272 yards on Saturday night but the two interceptions he tossed were real backbreakers. It didn’t help that he averaged only 3.6 yards per carry to negate the handful of times he was able to break free for a decent gain, too.
Florida State will probably be favored to win out the rest of the season as games against Pitt, at Clemson and at Florida are the only tricky items left on the docket. But if it wants to reach double-digit wins and even threaten to make things interesting with regards to the College Football Playoff, it is going to need better play out of its quarterback. He can be dynamic when he wants to, but the guy we’ve seen the last two weeks is much more the signal-caller who got run out of Boston College last season than the player who was talking a big game and pulling off the upset of the Tide.
Miami has a case to be No. 1
It’s going to be fascinating to see if Miami can close the gap to No. 1 Ohio State atop the polls come Sunday afternoon. It will be tough to completely overtake the reigning national champs given how much voters value the Buckeyes’ talent, but if anybody has a case, it’s the Hurricanes.
Mario Cristobal’s team has the best wins of anybody in the country right now between beating Notre Dame, USF, Florida and Florida State. It is undefeated. It also has played really well outside of a few minutes that allowed the Irish to get back into the game during the opener.
That’s a pretty good combination to have and a résumé much better than what Ohio State can lean on right now, especially in light of the drop-off we’ve seen from preseason No. 1 Texas.
It doesn’t matter too much at the moment as Miami remains on track to receive a first-round CFP bye and host a quarterfinal. But there should be a growing drumbeat to have the Canes as the top-ranked team over the coming weeks well before the selection committee gets together next month.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI Expert Takeaways from Miami–Florida State: Hurricanes’ Case for No. 1 CFP Seed.
