This was Miami’s first real test of the season, and for a while it looked like the kind of night that exposes a team’s softness. Instead, No. 5 Miami did what good teams do: it built a big lead, absorbed the messiness that followed, and still walked away with a 33-20 win over Wake Forest.
The final score does not tell the full story, because this was far from clean. Miami was mistake heavy and execution light after taking a 31-7 lead midway through the third quarter, which gave Wake Forest just enough oxygen to make the second half uncomfortable. But the Hurricanes had already done the hard part, and that mattered.
The headline number belongs to Darian Mensah, who was almost absurdly efficient. He finished 30-for-34 for 220 yards and three touchdowns, and he opened the night by completing his first 24 passes before finally missing. That is not just a good performance; it is the sort of quarterback display that keeps a road game under control even when the supporting cast starts wobbling.
How Miami seized control
Miami set the tone immediately with a 12-play, 94-yard drive for a 7-0 lead, then answered Wake Forest’s own 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive by reasserting itself before halftime. By the break, the Hurricanes were up 24-7, and the game already looked like it was tilting toward the team with the better structure and the calmer quarterback.
That part is easy to appreciate. The less comfortable truth is that Miami did not finish the job with much grace. Once the lead reached 31-7, the game should have been put away. Instead, the Hurricanes let Wake Forest linger just long enough to make the evening feel more complicated than it needed to be.
The injury that changed the mood
Then came the moment that turned the night from competitive to grim. Marty Brown suffered a significant knee injury after a 32-yard run to the 1-yard line, and Mike Monaco described the scene as “gruesome.” Whatever momentum Wake Forest had built, that injury put everything else into perspective.
From there, Miami added a safety on a holding call in the end zone early in the fourth quarter to complete the scoring. It was not glamorous, but it was enough. And in a season where ranking, reputation and reality often drift apart, surviving a sloppy second half on the road is still a useful marker.
The larger lesson is simple: Miami has talent, Miami has a quarterback in Mensah who can make defenses look ordinary, and Miami also has work to do if it wants to look like a team that can handle better opposition without giving everyone a scare. On this night, the result was correct. The performance was not fully convincing. That is what makes it a real test, and why the Forest Score matters.
