Miami Hurricanes at Virginia Tech Hokies

Beck's 4 TD passes carry No. 14 Miami past Virginia Tech, 34-17

Malachi Toney had career highs in receptions (12) and yards (146) and had a touchdown, lifting the Hurricanes (9-2, 5-2 ACC, No. 13 CFP) to their third straight win and keeping alive their hopes of making it to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.

“All in all, we had control of the game from the beginning all the way till the end,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “I’m really proud of our guys.”

Beck, who completed his first 11 passes and finished 27 of 32, threw touchdown passes of 20 yards to Elija Lofton and 3 yards to Mark Fletcher in the first half, and Carter Davis added two field goals, as Miami scored on all four first-half possessions to take a 20-3 halftime lead.

Virginia Tech (3-8, 2-5) cut the lead to 20-10 on a 38-yard touchdown run by Jeffrey Overton on its first possession of the second half, but Miami answered with a 16-yard TD pass from Beck to Girard Pringle Jr. nearly seven minutes later.

“I thought the game plan was really, really good going into the week in preparation from Sunday through Friday,” Beck said. “The energy was super high, the offense was clicking throughout the week and we had a lot of confidence going into the game. Even with all that, you’ve got to go out and execute, and we were able to do that.”

Beck added a 20-yard touchdown pass to Toney in the final minute for the Hurricanes, who finished with 418 yards.

Marcellous Hawkins finished with 72 yards on eight carries for the Hokies, who had 194 yards rushing against the ACC’s No. 1 rushing defense (81.8 ypg) and lost their third straight game.

“I think we played physically, I think we played on the edges and I think we’d have put more on them if we hadn’t gotten down as quickly as we did,” Virginia Tech interim coach Philip Montgomery said. “If we had been able to maintain a few things in there, I think we could have added more.”

The Takeaway Miami: The Hurricanes have won three consecutive games by at least 17 points and are making a late-season push to get into the College Football Playoff.

Virginia Tech: The Hokies, who have lost five of six games, are playing out the season and getting ready to usher in the James Franklin era. Franklin was introduced Wednesday as the Hokies’ new coach, taking over for his former defensive coordinator at Penn State, Brent Pry, who was fired Sept. 14.

Explaining the late score Up 10 with 26 seconds remaining, Miami elected to go for it on fourth-and-2 from the Virginia Tech 19. Instead of kicking a short field goal or handing the ball off, the Hurricanes’ staff called for a pass play, and Beck hit Toney for the final score.

Cristobal explained his mindset after the game.

“If people are going to play man coverage and load the box, it’s not fair to our players to just sit there and run it in there and get two or three free hitters on your guy,” Cristobal said. “We’re going to stay aggressive.”

Cristobal also said he wasn’t trying to impress the CFP selection committee.

“We’re playing ball. We’re not slowing down,” he said. “Some people call it style points and all that other stuff. We’re just playing ball and trying to make our team better and staying aggressive. When we call it aggressive, our players play aggressive.”

Fabulous freshman Toney recorded his third 100-yard receiving game of the season and now has 59 catches for 698 yards and five touchdowns on the season. He is making a case for the ACC Rookie of the Year honor.

“He’s such an incredible talent,” Beck said. “I’m just glad he’s on our team. He’s going to be really special, and he is special right now.”

Up next Miami plays at Pittsburgh on Saturday.

Virginia Tech plays at rival Virginia on Saturday.