It was a long, brutal day at Ben Griffin Stadium for Florida football fans yesterday. In the 2024 season opener, the Gators were thoroughly dominated by Miami and new Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward 41-17. And after the game, Ward had some interesting words for the Florida faithful.
Ward, who transferred from Washington State during the offseason, sliced and diced Florida’s defense on Saturday. Although he threw an interception, the experienced quarterback was otherwise flawless — he went 26 of 35 for 385 yards (a program debut record) and 3 touchdowns, in addition to rushing for 33 yards on 3 carries.
Following the game, Ward indicated he was rather unimpressed by the UF atmosphere.
“I played at USC,” Ward said (h/t ESPN). “USC wasn’t packed, but it was louder than this. I played in Oregon, it was louder than this. The Pac-12 gets misspoken for. Some advice to the fans: If you’re going to be loud, you have to be loud when we’re huddling. Can’t just be loud once we break the huddle. By that time, there’s no point. We hear the play. We communicated already. But it was a good atmosphere to play in. And I’m just excited now we were able to get a victory.”
Miami crushes Florida in big season-opening win
Despite being ranked 19th in the nation against an unranked opponent, Miami entered Saturday’s highly anticipated game only a 2.5-point favorite. The Hurricanes made that look really silly really quickly.
Cam Ward got the Canes started early with a 9-yard touchdown pass to Cam McCormick a little over halfway through the first quarter. Ward similarly capped off the first half with a 24-yard toss to Xavier Restrepo to give Miami a 24-10 edge going into the break.
Following halftime, Miami turned up the heat. Less than three minutes into the third quarter, the Canes scored again, increasing their lead to 21. A little more than six minutes later, Ward threw his third and final touchdown pass, this time to Jacolby George to turn a commanding lead into one verging on the edge of a blowout.
While Florida scored a touchdown and Miami could only respond with a field goal in the fourth quarter, the result remained a surprising one if the Vegas odds were to be believed.
After the win, Miami head coach Mario Cristobal said how his team follows up Saturday’s win will be crucial.
“We’ve been working our butts off,” Cristobal said. “Getting a convincing win like that is great, but the most important thing that we talked about was for the first time in a long time, Miami’s had a chance to play a big-time game to start the season, and now we got to show we can handle that success and go get better. Today was a really, really big step.”
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