No. 8 Miami Hurricanes rally from 25-point deficit for road win at Cal

It was an upset-filled weekend of college football, with a handful of the country’s top teams falling to lower-ranked teams.

The No. 8 Miami Hurricanes came close to joining that group, but a furious second-half rally for a second consecutive week allowed them to once again escape a conference game with a narrow victory.

Last week, it was overcoming multiple 10-point deficits and a chaotic review following a last-second Hail Mary that was ultimately ruled incomplete to beat Virginia Tech.

This time, Miami erased a 25-point second-half deficit for a 39-38 win over the Cal Golden Bears on Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 52,428 at California Memorial Stadium on the day ESPN’s “College GameDay” came to Berkeley for the first-time in the show’s history.

Miami (6-0, 2-0 ACC) trailed Cal (3-2, 0-2 ACC) 35-10 with 8:06 left in the third quarter before it ripped off four consecutive touchdown drives while holding the Golden Bears to just a field goal to secure the win.

The game-winning play: A 5-yard touchdown pass from Cam Ward to Elijah Arroyo with 26 seconds left on a drive that included a 77-yard catch-and-run from Xavier Restrepo to get Miami into the red zone and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that forced them back 15 yards with less than a minute left to play and a 22-yard catch-and-run from Damien Martinez on third and 20 to get Miami back to the Cal 3.

Miami linebacker Francisco Mauigoa intercepted a Fernando Mendoza fourth-down pass with 11 seconds left to seal the game.

“We did it,” a relieved Mauigoa said postgame.

The rest of Miami’s scoring drives during the comeback:

▪ A Martinez 1-yard rushing touchdown and a two-point conversion. Miami down 35-18 with 3:02 left in the third quarter.

▪ A Ward 18-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Horton. Miami down 38-25 with 10:28 left in the game.

▪ And a Ward 24-yard touchdown run. Miami down 38-32 with 4:04 left to play.

“No-quit mentality,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said postgame.

Ward finished the game completing 35 of 53 passes for 437 yards, two touchdowns and a third-quarter interception that Cal’s Nohl Williams returned 40 yards for a touchdown that had Miami down 28-10.

Before the late rally, Miami’s only touchdown drive was capped by a 3-yard Mark Fletcher touchdown run to put Miami up 7-0 with 6:19 left in the first quarter.

The late heroics offset so much that went wrong for the Hurricanes, particularly on defense, in the first half. Busted pass coverages put Miami in a massive hole.

Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza — a Miami native who went to high school at Columbus, about 5 miles from UM’s campus — completing three passes of at least 50 yards in the first half to help the Golden Bears jump out to a 21-10 halftime lead.

The first: A 57-yard strike to wide-open tight end Jack Endries after D’Yoni Hill had a coverage miscommunication to tie the game at 7-7 in the first quarter.

The second: A 51-yard pass to wide receiver Trond Girzell that set up an eventual 5-yard rushing touchdown by Jadyn Ott to put Cal up 14-7 with 13:43 left in the second quarter.

The third: A 66-yard catch-and-run touchdown from Ott on fourth and inches when the Hurricanes defense went all-in anticipating a run to put Cal up 21-10 with eight minutes left in the first half.

And, for good measure, Mendoza added a fourth such pass in the second half, with his short throw to Jaivian Thomas on third-and-15 in the third quarter turning into a 56-yard gain. Two plays later, Cal found the end zone again on a 9-yard Chandler Rogers rushing touchdown to go up 35-10 with 8:08 left in the third quarter.

For context: The Hurricanes had given up just one passing play of at least 50 yards — a 64-yard pass from USF’s Byrum Brown on Sept. 21 — all season entering Saturday.

Mendoza completed 11 of 22 passes for 285 yards and the two touchdowns and the game-sealing interception.

“We did a lot of routine things wrong,” Cristobal said.

And then Miami made its adjustments. Play by play, drive by drive, stop by stop on defense and score by score on offense, the Hurricanes put together a comeback to remember.

It wasn’t pretty. Not by any sense of the imagination.

But, just like last week against Virginia Tech when they came back from 10 points down, a win is a win.

Especially when seeing what happened across the college football landscape on Saturday.

Five of the top 11 teams in the AP top-25 poll lost — with four of those defeats coming against unranked opponents.

No. 1 Alabama lost 40-35 to unranked Vanderbilt, one week after knocking Georgia from the top spot.

No. 4 Tennessee, which entered the week averaging a nation-leading 54 points per game, lost 19-14 to unranked Arkansas.

No. 9 Missouri lost 41-10 to t-No. 25 Texas A&M.

No. 10 Michigan lost 27-17 to unranked Washington.

No. 11 USC lost 24-17 to unranked Minnesota.

The Hurricanes nearly added themselves to the list. And then they dug themselves out of a 25-point hole.

“We’re tough,” defensive lineman Simeon Barrow said. “We’re a tough team, and no matter what, we ain’t gonna back down. No matter what. We ain’t gonna flinch. We’re gonna keep on playing until that clock hits zero.”

Miami is on bye next week. Its next game is Oct. 19 at Louisville.