Miami Hurricanes quarterback Carson Beck (11) looks to pass in the first half of the NCAA football game against the Stanford Cardinal at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Saturday, October 25, 2025.
adiaz@miamiherald.com
The Miami Hurricanes know what’s at stake this weekend.
Sure, the matchup between the No. 10 Hurricanes (6-1, 2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) and the SMU Mustangs (5-3, 3-1 ACC) on Saturday at Gerald J. Ford Stadium (noon, ESPN) isn’t the marquee contest that it had the potential to be entering the season.
But the ramifications that will come out of the game will still have a major impact on the state of the ACC and, for the Hurricanes specifically, the College Football Playoff.
“Tremendous opportunity,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “Besides the fact you’re playing a great team, it’s another conference game. Like we’ve talked about all year long, every single game that you play, even out-of-conference games, they’re all playoff games. They all have value.”
Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal on the field during the NCAA football game against the Stanford Cardinal at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Saturday, October 25, 2025. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
That became even more paramount after Miami dropped its first game of the season two weeks ago, a 24-21 defeat by the Louisville Cardinals. The Hurricanes responded last week with a 42-7 win over the Stanford Cardinal, a victory in which Miami outscored Stanford 35-0 in the second half.
But that one loss puts Miami in a potentially precarious position. It no longer can make it to the ACC Championship Game based solely on its own accomplishments. Two conference teams are still undefeated in league play in the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Virginia Cavaliers. Five more — Miami, SMU, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Duke — have one loss in ACC play.
The conference is wide open with five weeks left on the schedule. Additionally, a second loss could knock Miami out of contention for the 12-team College Football Playoff.
“When you head into conference play, as the weeks go by, the level of difficulty and importance just continues to elevate,” Cristobal said.
Saturday will be the prime example of that. It’s the first of three road games for Miami during the final five weeks, with stops at Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh to end the season. It’s also the Hurricanes’ first early kickoff — 11 a.m. local time in Dallas — after playing six night games and one 4:30 p.m. game to begin the season.
And it’s against an SMU team that, despite having three losses, has been among the ACC’s best since joining the league last season.
Led by former Hurricanes offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee, the Mustangs went 11-1 and a perfect 8-0 in league play in the regular season in 2024 before falling to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game and then to Penn State in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
SMU has had a bit of a dropoff this year, going 2-2 in non-conference play with losses to Baylor and TCU and then dropping its first conference game in three years when it fell 13-12 to Wake Forest last week.
“The worst offensive performance since we’ve been here. Not even close,” Lashlee said, with SMU’s 246 yards of offense against Wake Forest the lowest of his four-year tenure and the 12 points scored the third-lowest over 49 games at the helm.
Miami is not expecting a repeat dud performance from its opponent.
SMU’s offense ranks 50th nationally in points per game (31.4). Dual-threat quarterback Kevin Jennings, who has been playing through injury, is in his second year as a starter and has some notable weapons at his disposal, including a one-two punch at running back in TJ Harden and former Hurricane Chris Johnson (a combined 770 rushing yards and eight touchdowns) and five pass catchers with at least 200 receiving yards.
“They have weapons,” said defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, who added the Mustangs’ scheme and tempo reminds him of what they faced against Florida State. “They do a really good job of spreading the football around. It’s a little bit different every week.”
The SMU defense, meanwhile, presents an interesting challenge.
The Mustangs are great at applying pressure — they’re tied for ninth nationally with 25 sacks — and have a nation-leading 20 forced turnovers, including 12 interceptions and eight fumble recoveries.
But SMU is also giving up on average the second-most passing yards per game (303.5) and has allowed 36 passing plays of 20 or more yards, which is tied with Stanford for the third-most nationally.
SMU also does a good job limiting the run game, allowing an average of 95.5 yards per game on the ground.
“They’re going to pose a challenge for us,” said quarterback Carson Beck, who has completed 73.3% of his passes for 1,673 yards this season and is 136 passing yards away from 10,000 for his college career.
But Miami is a challenging force, too. The Hurricanes are averaging 34 points per game and have allowed an average of just 14.1 points per game on defense. They have yet to give up more than 24 points in a game this season.
“I think I can probably confidently say it’s the most complete team we’ve played since I’ve been here,” Lashlee said. “They’re national championship good on defense. I mean, they’re really, really good. And then offensively got a championship-caliber quarterback and a lot of playmakers. Where they’re great is they’re big on both sides of the line of scrimmage. I mean, they dominate the line of scrimmage.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 12:59 PM.
Jordan McPherson
Miami Herald
Jordan McPherson covers the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Panthers for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and covered the Gators athletic program for five years before joining the Herald staff in December 2017.
