Notre Dame comeback falls short at Miami despite late heroics from QB CJ Carr

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Anyone who counted Notre Dame out of Sunday’s season opener at Miami clearly didn’t care to recall what happened on the very field the Fighting Irish played on eight months prior.

They just refuse to lay down at Hard Rock Stadium.

This result, though, wasn’t the same as the previous one. Essentially, the exact opposite; Miami beat Notre Dame, 27-24, the same score by which the Irish defeated Penn State in the Orange Bowl to punch a ticket to the national championship game. The stakes were much lower this time around, but the circumstances felt eerily familiar.

Once trialing by double digits, Notre Dame clawed all the way back to tie the game at 24 points apiece late in the fourth quarter. Riley Leonard had a lot to do with it in January. On the final day of August, the comeback was complements of his successor — redshirt freshman CJ Carr.

Making his debut as a starter, Carr completed 18-of-28 pass attempts for 209 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. His first TD pass was a Houdini-act type of play of epic proportions. He nearly stepped foot on the 30-yard line on a play that was snapped from the seven. He worked himself free enough — by way of running all over the place with defensive linemen in hot pursuit — to fire a touchdown toss to fellow redshirt freshman Micah Gilbert.

Then Carr perfectly played a run-pass-option for an easy flick to junior wide receiver Jordan Faison to bring Notre Dame within a touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter.

He didn’t lay down.

“He’s a gamer, man,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. “He performs when the lights are on.”

Carr accounted for 75 yards on three plays, including a seven-yard touchdown rush on a keeper, on Notre Dame’s game-tying touchdown drive. He completed a 65-yard catch and run to tight end Eli Raridon that was aided by a nifty pump fake to set Raridon off and running.

As impressive as he was, Carr wasn’t the only quarterback dealing. His counterpart, Carson Beck, played an effective game himself. He was a big reason why Miami was in position to kick a 47-yard field goal for the win with just over a minute remaining.

Beck led Miami on back-to-back touchdown drives of double-digit plays, one to close the first half and another to open the second, and suddenly the Irish trailed by two scores. It proved to be just enough of an advantage for the Canes to hold off the pesky Irish. The latter just didn’t have enough magic acts left in them. Or enough time.

Beck, the Georgia transfer with 28 career starts including his first in a Miami uniform, admirably dueled Carr, who made his first career start in front of a Hard Rock Stadium crowd that felt like it was transported through time and transplanted from the old Orange Bowl. You know, where the Hurricanes played when The U was still The U. Well, it sure seemed like The U was back to kick off the 2025 college football season in front of a Hard Rock record 66,793 attendees.

The Canes protected Beck and enabled him to put forth a clean stat line of 20-of-205 for 205 yards and 2 touchdowns. When Beck needed to make a play, he did. Miami’s running game got better as the game went along as well.

“I felt like they did a good job protecting the quarterback,” Freeman said. “I think there were times where Beck had enough time to really figure out what coverage we were playing and put the ball where it needed to be put.”

Notre Dame, meanwhile, did not win the line of scrimmage. Widely viewed as the best running back in the sport, junior Jeremiyah Love had 10 carries for 33 yards. It wasn’t his fault; he had no room to run. The Irish often tried using the passing game as an extension of the running game to spread the field and open things up a bit, but it only resulted in a meager beginning of the game for Carr. He was under 100 yards passing well into the second half.

Ultimately, the big, bad Notre Dame team that won a College Football Playoff game on the same field it faced the Canes on eight months prior was nowhere to be found until the game was nearly out of hand. The Irish weren’t the bullies. They got bullied.

Still, they had a chance to make it all a moot point. They did tie the game and quiet the crowd considerably. Again — too little, too late for these Irish, who didn’t come close enough to playing the same brand of football that took them to the national title game a season ago.

Long way to go, but lots to fix in the meantime.

My dad always says the only way to get rid of a loss is with a win,” Carr said.