Miami Football: 3 takeaways from upset victory over Virginia

Miami football prevailed in a defensive affair over No. 20 Virginia on Friday night. What did we learn from the ACC victory by the Hurricanes?

It was hardly the prettiest of victories, but Manny Diaz will be happy with the way his Miami Hurricanes team was able to pull out the 17-9 victory over Virginia at Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night in ACC play. The Hurricanes moved to 3-3 in the standings at the midpoint of their 2019 regular season, and claimed a key win over a ranked Cavaliers team.

With the loss, Virginia is probably going to plummet right out of the polls when they are released on Sunday after all of the Week 7 action concludes. Bronco Mendenhall’s team were able to move the football throughout the game, but they were unable to convert those yards into points on the scoreboard.

That proved costly in the end for the Cavaliers, as they were forced to try field goal after field goal. Against a Miami team that did just enough when it had the ball to put 17 points on the scoreboard, the kicking game was not going to be Virginia’s salvation.

The loss by Virginia opens the door for any number of contenders in a wide-open ACC Coastal race. Even Miami, currently 1-2 in conference play, still has a shot at representing the division in the ACC championship game in December. But they will need some luck to get there.

Here are three things we learned about the Hurricanes as they survived on Friday to get back to .500 in the standings.