Miami has a star at QB in Cam Ward and a confident team capable of special things

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Cam Ward was in a giving mood after the Miami Hurricanes opened their season Saturday by stomping the rival Florida Gators in The Swamp.

He offered some advice for the 90,000 fans who were screaming at the top of their lungs at him and his teammates.

“If you’re gonna be loud, be loud when we’re huddling,” Miami’s star quarterback said. “You can’t just be loud when we break the huddle. There’s no point. We heard the play and communicated already.”

The Gators didn’t lose, though, because their home crowd let them down. The 19th-ranked Hurricanes did it the old-fashioned way — by obliterating Florida on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

Ward looked bored at times standing behind a wall of offensive linemen with enough time to sign NIL deals, sip tea and pick apart Florida’s secondary. He made one mistake early — an errant throw behind his receiver — and finished with 385 passing yards and three touchdowns while completing 26-of-35 pass attempts. He sidestepped Florida’s secondary with ease the two times he took off for long runs and was sacked only once.

Ward’s 23-yard touchdown pass to Jacolby George in the back of the end zone to make it 38-10 with six minutes left in the third quarter was his masterpiece.

“Yeah, he’s not bad,” Cristobal said of the Washington State transfer. “He’s just scratching the surface.”

The Hurricanes might be, too.

They were nearly perfect in the much-anticipated opener. Sure, Ward’s pick wasn’t ideal. And two Miami defensive players took a bad angle on a 71-yard touchdown run by Florida’s Montrell Johnson. Oh, Andy Borregales missed a field goal. Other than that? Not much to complain about.

The Canes held Florida to 261 yards of offense and outgained the Gators by 268 yards. And that was with Rueben Bain, their best defensive player, going down with a soft-tissue injury on the first play of the game. Starting cornerback Damari Brown was also sidelined early with a similar injury.

Don’t worry, Canes fans, Cristobal said he expects both players back in a week or two. The way the Hurricanes looked on Saturday, Bain and Brown could take the next month off. Florida A&M, Ball State and South Florida are up next on the schedule.

Miami should be 4-0 when it opens ACC play at home on Sept. 27 against Virginia Tech — a team that lost to Vanderbilt on Saturday. You probably have to glance ahead to the trip to Louisville on Oct. 19 to find a game the Hurricanes might not be favored to win.

“We’re playing Miami football now. We’re starting to look like Miami in a lot of different respects,” Cristobal said.  “No one ever really likes to talk about the starting point. These guys have been through a lot and made the decision that they’d had enough. They proved it by the way they played the game.”

At ACC media days in July, Miami was picked to finish third in the league behind defending conference champion Florida State and the Clemson Tigers. Earlier on Saturday, Dabo Swinney’s team got run off the field in the second half by Georgia in a humbling 34-3 loss in Atlanta. Florida State needs to beat Boston College on Monday to avoid an 0-2 start.

With Ward at the helm, the Hurricanes are oozing confidence.

“He’s ridiculous. He’s amazing,” said Xavier Restrepo, who led Miami with seven catches for 112 yards and one touchdown. “He has the same love that we all have for the game. So it’s easy, you know, to do something for someone that loves football as much as you do.”

Ward, meanwhile, has no issue giving Gators and SEC fans a parting gift to chew on.

“I played at USC. USC wasn’t packed, but it was louder than this,” Ward said. “I played at Oregon. It was louder than this. Washington was one of the loudest environments I’ve played in. The Pac-12 is misspoken for. The Pac-12 is where I feel real football is played.”

(Photo of Cam Ward: James Gilbert / Getty Images)