Cam Ward and No. 8 Miami continue their strong performance.
Ward passed for 404 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday night, becoming the 13th player in NCAA history to exceed 15,000 career passing yards while leading the Hurricanes to a 50-15 win over South Florida.
He threw touchdown passes of 6 yards to Isaiah Horton, 5 yards to Xavier Restrepo, and 76 yards to Sam Brown, with the last one putting Miami (4-0) in the lead for good late in the second quarter.
Damien Martinez scored three rushing touchdowns, including two 1-yard runs that helped extend the lead to 36-15 in the third quarter.
“He’s been great for a long time,” Horton said about Ward. “As soon as he got on campus, he made his mark instantly. I love playing with him.”
Receiver Sean Atkins caught 11 passes for 125 yards and also threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to quarterback Byrum Brown for USF (2-2).
The Bulls were ahead 15-14 with 2:36 left in the first half, thanks to field goals of 58 and 51 yards from Nico Gramatica and a 45-yarder from John Cannon, which gave the announced crowd of 58,616 hopes of an upset.
“Proud of our guys for responding like they did. It’s the first time we’ve actually trailed this year,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “In the second half we played cleaner and better Miami Hurricane football.”
Ward came into the game needing 89 yards to reach 15,000 for his career and achieved this on a 22-yard completion to Horton late in the first quarter. Shortly after, he threw a 6-yard touchdown to Horton, completing an eight-play, 90-yard drive that gave the Hurricanes a 14-9 lead.
The only other active college quarterback with more than 15,000 passing yards is Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, who had 15,779 yards in 53 games at three different schools before Saturday.
Ward reached the milestone in his 48th game, starting his career at Incarnate Word, where he threw for 6,908 yards in two seasons.
The 6-foot-2, 223-pound quarterback spent the last two years at Washington State, passing for 6,968 yards there. He has thrown for 1,439 yards in Miami’s first four games, becoming the first player at the school to start with four consecutive 300-yard games, raising his career total to 15,315.
Ward’s only interception happened when a pass hit off Restrepo’s hands in the first quarter. Jordan Lyle capped off Miami’s scoring with a 90-yard touchdown run in the last few minutes.
“We stayed the course offensively. The one turnover we had, that really shot us in the foot,” Ward said. “We knew going into this game we couldn’t help them. That’s something we emphasized, and after that play, we got back to our brand of offense.”
USF, which is rebuilding under second-year coach Alex Golesh, gave a Top 10 team challenges for the second time in their last three games. The Bulls caught Miami’s attention when they nearly upset No. 4 Alabama before a fourth-quarter collapse resulted in a 42-16 loss.
They were only down 14-13 going into the fourth quarter against Alabama, and on Saturday night they trailed 22-15 after Cannon missed a 31-yard field goal that could have made it a four-point game just before halftime.
“I’m not going to justify losing, but I’m proud of where we stand after 16 games,” Golesh said, having taken over a team that went 1-11 two years ago. “We’ve raised the standard to a point that our guys go into these games believing they can win.”
Ward threw for five touchdowns in the previous week’s 62-0 win over Ball State, where Miami set a school record with 750 total yards of offense. His three touchdown passes against USF brought his season total to 14.
