Carson Beck’s life at Miami began in contrast to how things ended at Georgia. The new QB1 of the Hurricanes led Mario Cristobal’s team to a perfect 5-0 record, defeating Notre Dame, Florida, and Florida State along the way. But that perfect start ended at home in their Week 8 Friday night clash against Louisville. The No. 2 Canes fell to the Cardinals, 21-24. David Pollack, one of the biggest supporters of the Miami Hurricanes, was not pleased with what he saw against the Cardinals.

“Miami, which was number one on See Ball Get Ball… they’re not at number one no more,” David Pollack said on his ‘See Ball Get Ball show. The CFB Hall of Famer was supporting Miami from the start of the season for their resume and their dominance on the line of scrimmage. “The quarterback gets a lot of the blame.”

“When you look at Carson’s plays, the first interception, obviously, it’s on Carson. Like, he threw it into triple coverage,” Pollack said. “When he throws the football, leaves his hands, and Tony almost makes the catch, which is crazy. Like, not a good decision. Not a good decision at all. So it’s really a bad decision from a guy who’s played a lot of football, and that one he has to wear.”

Trailing 14-7 in the second quarter, Beck threw a long pass targeting Malachi Toney, with three in coverage, and Louisville’s Antonio Watts intercepted the pass. But that wasn’t the only mistake Beck was going to make during the game.

In the same quarter, with 7:23 left, his throw was intercepted again by Jamari Beck. “Second, they orchestrated a double move. I think they thought they were going to get man-to-man. They got zone… Carson pump fakes, the corner bites a little bit, but he was bailing so hard to play over the top that he was in a good position and again made a phenomenal catch. Both the first two were phenomenal catches.”

“The third one was Carson on fourth down, drops back like he has to push the ball a little bit down the field. Gets his feet a little bit happy, throws an interception.” This happened in the fourth play of the fourth quarter, trailing 24-13, where Beck passed to Louisville’s JoJo Evans, and nobody was around. “He did throw another one that didn’t count because of roughing the passer. So, it wasn’t a great day for this Miami offense,” Pollack said. 

Beck’s 4th interception came in the final moment with 36 seconds left in the last quarter. The Hurricanes had a chance to tie or go for the win, trailing by 3 points, but T.J. Capers intercepted Beck’s throw to win the game, 24-21. Beck ended the night with 271 passing yards and four interceptions. 

Miami didn’t play like the No. 2 team on both sides of the ball, and it derailed their perfect start to the season. Louisville’s offense also had a field day, with Miller Moss throwing for 248 yards and two touchdowns. RB Isaac Brown accumulated 113 yards on 15 carries. Mario Cristobal wasn’t happy with his team, and you can understand why. 

Pressure on Miami’s HC Mario Cristobal

After a disappointing loss against Louisville, Mario Cristobal wasn’t happy with their team’s play and took blame on himself and the Hurricanes’ coaching staff. “Obviously, really disappointed outcome at the end of the day, credit to them, certainly they played,” Cristobal said.

“We didn’t coach well enough, we didn’t execute well enough, and certainly came up short. Just not good enough. It wasn’t good enough, all of us. But sitting around being pissed is not going to do anything. We have to go back to work and get better.”

Cristobal pointed out that they barely rushed into the opponent’s territory. “We did not run the ball well… we also got ourselves off schedule several times… all in all, not good enough.” Miami took 24 attempts, rushing only 63 yards, with a 2.6 yards per play. Whereas the Cardinals rushed 119 yards and dominated the ground game.

There are a lot of things to take care of on Miami’s side, but the conference play will not get any easier. They face Stanford, SMU, Syracuse, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Pittsburgh in the next six weeks straight to end the regular season. Even winning all these games may not be enough for the Hurricanes to make it to the conference championship game. They have to hope for Georgia Tech, Virginia and Duke to drop some games.