Miami’s undefeated streak comes to an end after losing to Louisville by 21-24. One loss and they were down to No. 9 in the AP poll rankings. On a mission for a perfect season, Carson Beck’s four interceptions turned out costly, giving the win to their opponents. He hasn’t had four interceptions in a single game before, hadn’t lost a home game as a starter, and was undefeated against unranked opponents. Instead of taking accountability, Beck pointed his finger at the receiving end, only to get criticized online. With drama taking place off the field, Miami’s coach addressed Carson Beck’s mental state.

After a horrifying loss, Hurricanes’ OC Shannon Dawson spoke to the media, addressing Beck’s mindset, after a lot of criticism. “He’s fine.” Dawson said, “He’s played enough football to have games like that…he felt like we all did, like we gave one away, and it sucks.” Beck’s numbers were solid, except for four interceptions.

He completed 25 of 35 passes, with a 71.4% completion percentage for 271 yards, and was never sacked. His game is typically enough to win the game, except for mis-throws. He continued, “But at some point, you have to shake it off and move on…we’ve got to do better.” It is clear that the team is looking to move on, but looking to do better, moving forward.

Miami’s head coach, Mario Cristobal, also spoke to the media, addressing Beck’s performance on Friday, saying that the QB handled the situation “very professionally.” When asked about the online criticism for his post-game comments, the coach wasn’t aware of it. However, he made sure that there haven’t been any issues internally with that, and everything looks fine.

It is important to note that Louisville hasn’t scored any of Beck’s mis-throws, and three of the four drives came during the one-score game. His first interception came while trailing 14-7, in the second quarter, on the first play with 10 yards to reach, Beck threw a long pass targeting Malachi Toney, with three coverage, and was picked. In the same quarter, with 7:23 left, on the second play, he was intercepted again by Jamari Beck. In the fourth play of the fourth quarter, trailing 24-13, Beck’s pass landed in the hands of Louisville’s JoJo Evans, falling short. Even the last drive came with a 3-point deficit, but they had a chance to either tie or win the game. 

Carson Beck owns up to throwing errors, but also invites controversy

“I have to protect the ball better. That can’t happen,” Carson Beck told reporters. “It’s unacceptable. Again, credit to them. They made some really good plays and played really hard. But at the same time, a lot of those mistakes … didn’t have to happen.” Beck has been dealing with an interception problem for a long time now, but this was his worst in a single game. With this, he became the first Miami quarterback in 12 years to be intercepted four times.

However, for the last interception, he blamed his tight end, Elijah Lofton, for running the wrong way. “We have a perfect play for it. We just had a miscommunication about the route and what we were doing. So he just ran the route wrong and I went to throw it cuz we’re hot off a pressure and again he made a good play on it. But it definitely didn’t help that we ran the wrong way.”

After the clip went viral, College football analyst Danny Kannel took the issue to Carson Beck’s comments section, where he wrote, “I’m sorry but as a franchise QB you simply throw your guys under the bus like this…” This fanned the flames of the issue, and he was criticized on social media for his act. Thankfully, there are no issues internally, and Carson Beck seems to be fine. The team is positively looking forward to their next game against Stanford this Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium, looking for a quick bounce back, to reclaim their AP poll rankings.