\n<\/p>\n
Carson Beck scrambled for a three-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left, and Miami will head back home for a shot at their first national championship since 2001 after beating Mississippi 31-27 in an exhilarating College Football Playoff semi-final at the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never flinched,\u201d said Beck, who threw for 268 yards and two touchdowns with an interception. \u201cIn the face of adversity, when we had to respond, we responded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10th-ranked Hurricanes (13-2) didn\u2019t play in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game and were a somewhat controversial CFP pick \u2013 at least outside of South Florida \u2013 yet proved they belong. They will face either top-ranked Indiana or No 5 Oregon in the national title game on 19 January.<\/p>\n
Miami held Texas A&M and reigning national champion Ohio State to a combined 17 points to reach the CFP semi-finals. Then the Hurricanes shut down the high-scoring Rebels (13-2) for three quarters in the desert before pulling it out in a wild fourth.<\/p>\n
Malachi Toney, hero of Miami\u2019s opening CFP win over Texas A&M, turned a screen pass into a 36-yard touchdown that put the Hurricanes up 24-19.<\/p>\n
Trinidad Chambliss, a year removed from winning a Division II title at Ferris State, led the Rebels down the field and found Dae\u2019Quan Wright for a 24-yard touchdown with 3:13 left.<\/p>\n
Then it was Beck\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n
He won a national title as a backup at Georgia before two productive seasons as the Bulldogs\u2019 starter. Beck kept the Hurricanes calm amid the storm, leading them down the field for the winning score \u2013 and a shot at a national title on their home field at Hard Rock Stadium. Beck is 37-5 as a starter, including two seasons at Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s hungry, he\u2019s driven, he\u2019s a great human being, and all he wants to do is to see his teammates have success,\u201d said Mario Cristobal, in his fourth season coaching his alma mater. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we witnessed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chambliss completed two passes to get Ole Miss to the Miami 35 with six seconds left, but his heave to the end zone fell incomplete as time expired.<\/p>\n
The sixth-seeded Rebels lost their coach before the playoff, but not their cool.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Malachi Toney of the Miami Hurricanes carries the ball after a reception for a touchdown against the Ole Miss Rebels in the fourth quarter of Thursday\u2019s game.<\/span> Photograph: Christian Petersen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n If anything, Lane Kiffin\u2019s decision to bolt for LSU seemed to harden Ole Miss\u2019 resolve, pushing the Rebels to the best season in school history \u2013 and within a game of their first national championship game.<\/p>\n Ole Miss took the lead on Lucas Caneiro\u2019s fourth field goal, from 21 yards, and seemed poised to continue its improbable run with Chambliss\u2019 TD pass to Wright.<\/p>\n The Rebels couldn\u2019t hold back the Hurricanes on their final drive, but what a run it was.<\/p>\n With Pete Golding calling the shots after being promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, and most of the assistants sticking around, the Rebels blew out Tulane to open the playoff and took down mighty Georgia in the CFP quarterfinals.<\/p>\n They faced a different kind of storm in the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n Miami has rekindled memories of its 2001 national championship team behind a defense that went from porous to nearly impenetrable in its first season under coordinator Corey Hetherman.<\/p>\n The Hurricanes walled up early in the Fiesta Bowl, holding Ole Miss to minus-1 yard.<\/p>\n One play revved up the Rebels and their rowdy fans.<\/p>\n Kewan Lacy, the nation\u2019s third-leading rusher, burst through a hole up the middle for a 73-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second quarter \u2013 the longest run allowed by Miami\u2019s defense since 2018.<\/p>\n The Hurricanes seemed content to grind away at the Rebels in small chunks offensively, setting up CharMar Brown\u2019s four-yard touchdown run and a field goal.<\/p>\n Miami unlocked the deep game just before halftime, taking advantage of a busted coverage for a 52-yard touchdown pass from Beck to Keelan Marion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carson Beck scrambled for a three-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left, and Miami will head back home for a shot at their first national championship since 2001 after beating Mississippi 31-27 in an exhilarating College Football Playoff semi-final at the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night. \u201cWe never flinched,\u201d said Beck, who threw for 268 yards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[21948,535,1413,413,3196,548,14784,750,7078,10795,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-40971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-becks","9":"tag-college","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-late","13":"tag-miami","14":"tag-ole","15":"tag-playoff","16":"tag-scramble","17":"tag-sends","18":"tag-title"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}