Cote: Cristobal’s No. 5 Miami Hurricanes crush Duke & ex-coach Diaz, 53-31, stay unbeaten | Opinion

Everything seemed to be crumbling, slipping away from the Miami Hurricanes.

The unbeaten record. ACC title hopes. College Football Playoff standing. Cam Ward in the Heisman Trophy race. And, yes, let’s say it out loud: UM’s national-championship dream.

Slipping.

Duke had wrested all of the momentum in Saturday’s game. Led 28-17 near the middle of the third quarter, with coach Manny Diaz exalting on the visitor’s sideline in his return to Miami to face the school that fired him three years ago to hire Mario Cristobal.

Then the Canes did what they have all season. Rose up. Won. Found a way.

No. 5-ranked Miami improved to 9-0 Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium with a mighty surge and a 53-31 victory over the team that had come to end the perfect season and ruin the dream.

Miami is sure to rise to No. 4 by weekend’s end. And CFP and ACC hopes are intact, as is Ward’s Heisman shot. As for a long-elusive fifth national championship for UM? Not sure the Canes’ pass defense is up to that, but the dream is plausible, at least. Saturday kept all of that so.

Maybe there have been bigger wins for UM this year. There certainly have been closer ones. But this felt as big as any by a team on a mission.

Ward? He threw for five touchdowns and an even 400 yards on an afternoon that augmented very well the Heisman hype video the school introduced last week. Ward’s 29 TD throws for the year already has tied a UM record.

Favorite target Xavier Restrepo? All he did was catch three of those TD tosses and surpass the all-time UM career receiving records for most catches and yards. “A monumental accomplishment,” Cristobal called it.

The moment of the game, for me: Restrepo is being celebrated for the 66-yards scoring catch that broke both of those records, and one of the first to hug him is running back Mark Fletcher Jr. -- whose father’s funeral the team attended one day earlier. You see Restrepo point to the sky for Fletcher’s Dad. Then Canes receiving legend Michael Irvin hugs them both.

Cristobal afterward could not say enough about the chemistry Ward has developed with his receivers in his first 9and only) year with the program as a transfer.

“Two years ago it was very difficult. It was a hurdle, a mountain to get over,” he said of that chemistry issue. “Now, when you have command of a room, that is strong. They’re banging heads, but working together. Cam [and Restrepo], they’ll fight like an old couple. They want to win. They’re not afraid to be headstrong and be an alpha about it.”

This was three different games in one.

Miami trailed 21-17 after a first half that was two halves in one.

The Canes led 14-0 early, seemed dominant, were sailing.

Then momentum flipped as UM’s offense was bottled up with three 3-and-outs in four drives, and Duke scored touchdowns on three straight possessions.

A 34-yard TD pass from Cam Ward to Xavier Restrepo began the scoring on a play Ward extended by evading a sack and scrambling to buy time, with an eventual pass that was deflected in the end zone but fell to Restrepo.

It was 14-0 on a 4-yard Ward toss to tight end Cam McCormick, the ninth-year (!) collegian aged 26.

Duke then hammered Miamis defense for consecutive TD drives of 83, 77 and 75 yards, interspersed only by a short Canes field goal they settled for. That third Blue Devils scoring drive was abetted by three UM penalties totaling 40 yards as the Canes were crumbling at home after that big start.

But after Duke led 28-17 in the third, it was all Miami.

“We were a little bit more diverse in our coverages in the second half,” said Cristobal.

From that point Duke could add only a field goal.

And from that point Restrepo caught a 3-yard score followed by a two-point conversion run; Elijah Lofton scored on a 2-yard run; Jacolby George caught a 49-yard TD pass, Restrepo caught his 66-yarder, and then Fletcher finished the scoring outburst with a 1-yard run.

Miami entered as the No. 1 scoring offense nationally with a 46.8-point average, and somehow improved on that.

“Really like the way we closed it down after a fast start,” said Cristobal. “We regrouped at halftime and played Hurricane football. There’s no flinch in this group. We push ahead and get [opposing] teams uncomfortable. There’s a lot of pressure on teams to keep up [with us offensively], and that’s when the magic really happens.”

Said Diaz: “It’s a game of turnovers and explosive plays. It’s hard to beat anyone on the road if you lose those two battles. It’s definitely hard to beat a team as talented as they are and I thought that was the telling difference in the second half, giving an offense like that short fields and then allowing a quarterback who’s good enough as it is and to have breakdowns in our coverage to leave guys wide open allowed them to get separation on the scoreboard and take control of the game.”

Now the Canes finish the regular season at Georgia Tech, vs. Wake Forest and at Syracuse and will be big favorites in all three games.

In reach: 12-0, the ACC Championship Game, and a prime spot on the CFP bracket.

Manny Diaz, former UM coach, born and raised Miami, came back to town in Duke colors to ruin it all Saturday.

The Miami Hurricanes and Mario Cristobal said no.