No. 1 Miami Survives North Carolina 38-35 as Marquise Lightfoot's Strip-Sack Swings Halloween Thriller

For three and a half quarters, North Carolina played the No. 1 team in the country like an equal. Then Marquise Lightfoot got home.

No. 1 Miami survived North Carolina 38-35 on Halloween night at Kenan Stadium. Mark Fletcher Jr. punched in two second-half touchdowns, and Lightfoot strip-sacked Billy Edwards Jr. with 5:33 left, setting up the touchdown that turned out to be the difference. The Hurricanes move to 8-0 and 6-0 in the ACC. North Carolina falls to 4-4 and 2-3 after a second straight one-score loss at home.

This was not the cruise Miami has gotten used to. The Hurricanes spent the night trading haymakers with a team that had just lost to Syracuse, through two ties and four lead changes, and Carolina was never out of it.

Carolina had an answer for everything

Miami opened like a team expecting a short night. The Hurricanes took the opening kickoff and went 74 yards in 13 plays, burning 6:21 before Darian Mensah flipped a 2-yard touchdown pass to Malachi Toney. Cue the usual script.

Carolina did not read it. After a first drive died on a JJ Dunnigan and Lightfoot sack, the Tar Heels went 84 yards in 11 plays early in the second quarter, and Edwards found tight end Jelani Thurman from 8 yards out to tie it at 7. Miami answered right back. Fletcher converted a fourth-and-1 at the Carolina 35 with a 4-yard run, and on the next snap Mensah hit Fletcher for a 31-yard touchdown down the sideline.

Again, Carolina answered. Demon June converted a fourth-and-1 at the Miami 34, Trech Kekahuna caught passes of 19 and 23 yards, and Edwards went back to Thurman from the 8 with 1:56 left in the half. Fourteen apiece.

Miami still stole three points. Mensah hit Cooper Barkate for 40 yards, and after a Peyton Seelmann sack and a Javion Butts pass breakup in the end zone, Jake Weinberg's 25-yard field goal with 22 seconds left made it 17-14 at the half.

The Tar Heels take the lead

Carolina took the second-half kickoff and went 75 yards in eight plays. Thurman caught balls of 23 and 21 yards, and Edwards found Jordan Shipp for a 16-yard touchdown with 10:51 left in the third quarter. Carolina 21, No. 1 Miami 17. Kenan Stadium got very loud.

Mensah took that personally. Bill Belichick had warned all week that "Mensah is dangerous in the scramble," and the Miami quarterback proved it with a 24-yard run, Toney picked up 11 on a run, and a pass interference call extended the drive near the goal line. Fletcher finished it from 2 yards out with 5:14 left in the third. Miami 24-21.

Then Carolina put together its best drive of the night. Sixteen plays, 75 yards, 8:28 of clock. A holding flag wiped out what would have been a 12-yard Benjamin Hall touchdown run, and a scoring catch by June was overturned on review when June was ruled down short of the goal line. Carolina kept coming anyway, and June plunged in from a yard out with 11:46 to play. Carolina 28-24.

The turning point

Miami's answer took 3:57. Mensah hit Barkate for 16, Toney for 31 and Javian Mallory for 12, and when the drive stalled at the 2, the Hurricanes went for it on fourth-and-1. Fletcher scored on the play, tying Stephen McGuire's Miami record for career rushing touchdowns, and Weinberg made it 31-28 with 7:49 left.

That left Carolina 7:49 to do what it had done all night. It started badly. Justin Scott and Lightfoot dropped Edwards for a 7-yard loss on the first snap. Edwards bounced back with a 22-yard strike to Jaylen McGill, but two plays later Lightfoot came around the edge, hit Edwards from behind and knocked the ball loose. Scott fell on it at the Carolina 37 with 5:33 to play.

It was the first turnover of the game by either team. Miami cashed it in. Mallory carried four times on a six-play, 37-yard drive, Mensah hit Elija Lofton for 12 yards to the Carolina 13, and right after a Carolina timeout, Mensah found Toney from 9 yards out with 2:33 left. Weinberg's kick made it 38-28, and the Hurricanes' sideline finally exhaled.

Too early, as it turned out. Edwards hit McGill for 28 yards, and after a Booker Pickett Jr. sack, Miami handed Carolina 25 yards on a holding call and a pass interference flag. Edwards found Thurman for 10, then hit Kekahuna over the middle for a 15-yard touchdown with 1:38 left. Five plays, 75 yards, 55 seconds. Rece Verhoff's kick made it 38-35.

Then came the onside kick, which took three tries. Carolina was flagged for offside on the first one and again on the second, and the third, a 9-yard dribbler, was covered by Miami's Ezekiel Marcelin Jr. at the Carolina 34 with 1:35 left. Miami ran the clock down from there, and Mensah took a knee to end it.

Lightfoot, Fletcher and a quarterback who would not miss

Lightfoot finished with two sacks and seven tackles, and on a night when Edwards mostly had time to pick the Miami secondary apart, Lightfoot was the one problem the Tar Heels never solved. Chase Smith, JJ Dunnigan and Mohamed Toure had nine tackles apiece.

Fletcher's rushing line, 13 carries for 43 yards, does not jump off the page, but Fletcher scored three touchdowns, and two of them came on or right after fourth-down conversions. Mensah completed 22 of 29 passes for 274 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and added the 24-yard scramble that jump-started the go-ahead drive in the third. Barkate caught four passes for 71 yards, and Mallory added 51 rushing yards.

Toney was quiet by an absurd personal standard, with seven catches for 75 yards, a week after catching a school-record 16 passes against Pitt. Miami still found Toney for both bookend touchdowns and the 31-yard catch that set up the go-ahead score.

Edwards was nearly perfect, and it was not enough

Carolina's quarterback was outstanding. Edwards completed 28 of 34 passes for 341 yards with four touchdowns and did not throw an interception. Thurman caught five passes for 70 yards and two touchdowns, Shipp and Kekahuna added one score each, and McGill caught six balls for 69 yards out of the backfield.

The Tar Heels converted 8 of 11 third downs and did almost everything you need to do to beat the No. 1 team. The one exception was protecting the football on the drive that mattered most.

The numbers that mattered

The box score reads like a coin flip. Miami outgained Carolina just 416 to 407, Carolina had 27 first downs to Miami's 25 and won the time of possession battle 30:51 to 28:34, and both teams went 2-for-2 on fourth down. The gap was on the ground and in the turnover column. Miami ran for 142 yards at 4.3 per carry, held Carolina to 66 yards on 30 attempts, sacked Edwards four times and did not give the ball away once.

Miami was flagged just three times, a cleaner night after 10 penalties against Pitt, though two of those three flags came on Carolina's last touchdown drive. The full numbers are in the official box score (opens in a new tab), and Miami posted its game recap (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Miami, it is 8-0, a perfect ACC record intact and the kind of test a No. 1 team needs before the big one. It also snaps a five-game losing streak against North Carolina, and it is Miami's first win in Chapel Hill since 2017. Next up is a trip to No. 5 Notre Dame on Nov. 7. Mario Cristobal said during the week that the team was "expecting a tremendous challenge and opportunity on Saturday." It got both.

For North Carolina, the frustration is real. A week after losing to Syracuse in overtime, the Tar Heels pushed the country's best team to the final minutes and came away with nothing again. Belichick called Miami "the No. 1 team in the country and they should be," and the Tar Heels spent most of the night proving they belonged on the same field. At 4-4, Carolina still needs two more wins to reach a bowl. You can catch up on the Syracuse loss and Miami's rout of Pitt on Undrafted.

The last word

Miami's best teams found ways to win nights like this on the road. This one did too. The difference between 8-0 and a national story about the No. 1 team falling in Chapel Hill came down to one pass rusher and one loose football.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, Field Level Media and Miami Athletics. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Miami Athletics.