Notre Dame fends off Miami rally to dethrone top-ranked Canes

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- CJ Carr threw for 319 yards and three touchdowns, and No. 11 Notre Dame avenged its most damaging loss from last season by running out to a 21-point lead and holding on to beat No. 1 Miami 31-24 on Saturday night. Micah Gilbert caught two of those scoring passes, Jordan Faison had the other and Nolan James Jr. had a rushing score for Notre Dame (8-1), which came into the game knowing another loss to Miami could doom its national championship hopes. Not to worry. The Hurricanes (8-1) started slowly on offense in their first game without injured wide receiver and Heisman Trophy hopeful Malachi Toney -- and Notre Dame, which lost to Miami 27-24 last season in a game that ultimately kept the Irish out of the playoff, never trailed. Darian Mensah threw three touchdown passes for Miami, twice getting the Hurricanes within a touchdown after they trailed 24-3 early in the third. Cooper Barkate had a pair of those scoring grabs, and Elija Lofton had the other. Lofton nearly had a touchdown catch that would have made it 31-30 -- the score of the Miami-Notre Dame game in 1988 -- with 3:36 left, appearing to make a fourth-down grab in the end zone and getting his feet down. But Notre Dame's Luke Talich -- who had an interception in the third quarter -- knocked the ball away, with officials ruling that Lofton hadn't completed the grab. Notre Dame took over on downs, ran the clock down to about a minute and held on from there. With Miami falling, only two unbeaten teams remain in the Football Bowl Subdivision -- Utah and UCLA, which both moved to 9-0 with wins Saturday. This is the first time since 2003 that only two teams made it through the first nine games unbeaten; TCU and Oklahoma did it that year. On a night when 43 NFL scouts were part of a jampacked crowd at Notre Dame Stadium, where it was 40 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff and fell into the mid-30s as the night went along, the Irish stayed true to their mantra for 2026 -- one born from the frustration from not making the CFP field a year ago. They left no doubt. It got a little shaky at the end, but the Irish's CFP hopes are very much alive.