Miami's Secondary, Not Its Offense, Faces the Real Test at Wake Forest
The Hurricanes have outscored two overmatched opponents by a combined 109 points. Tonight in Winston-Salem, a shorthanded defensive backfield finally meets a quarterback who can actually throw it.
No. 5 Miami has spent two weeks torching overmatched opponents, and it hasn’t had to answer a single hard question about its own defense. That changes tonight at Wake Forest, where the Hurricanes play their first game against a team that can actually throw the football — with a secondary that’s already down three regulars.
Miami is 2-0 after a 45-6 dismantling of Stanford and a 77-7 rout of Florida A&M. Wake Forest enters the same 2-0, having beaten Akron 38-16 and survived Purdue 38-36 in double overtime. The difference tonight is obvious: Wake Forest’s offense is real. Alabama transfer Gio Lopez has thrown for six total touchdowns and 672 yards through two games running the Demon Deacons’ attack, and he’s listed as probable after the physical two-overtime win over Purdue.
The secondary Miami has left to throw at him
The Hurricanes have lost multiple contributors in the defensive backfield since the opener. Cornerback OJ Frederique Jr. suffered a significant left shoulder injury on the second snap of the Stanford game and is still out. Fellow corner Ja’Boree Antoine was ruled out before the game against Stanford and is expected back in the second half of the season. And starter Xavier Lucas did not play against Florida A&M and is expected to miss about a month. Tight end Luka Gilbert is also done for the year, a separate loss but one more example of how thin Miami’s depth chart has gotten in a hurry.
That leaves Damari Brown, Bryce Fitzgerald, Ethan O’Connor and freshman JJ Dunnigan holding down a group that hasn’t been forced to defend anyone dangerous yet. Stanford and FAMU aren’t offenses that expose a secondary. Wake Forest, which ranks among the nation’s more productive units through two weeks, is built to find exactly that kind of weakness. Lopez’s staff has made no secret of where they intend to attack.
Mario Cristobal called Frederique’s injury significant after the Stanford game, which is coach-speak for a long recovery. That’s the reality Miami is playing with: its top corner gone, its top slot corner not due back until midseason, and a starter who just returned from missing a game. This isn’t a hypothetical stress test. It’s the first live one.
An offense that hasn’t needed to be careful
None of that matters much if Miami’s offense keeps doing what it’s done. Darian Mensah, the Duke transfer who entered the season as the ACC’s preseason player of the year, leads the country in total passing yards through two weeks, and Miami as a team is averaging the second-most yards per game nationally. His top target, Malachi Toney, set a Miami freshman record with 1,211 receiving yards a year ago and already has three touchdowns this season. Running back Mark Fletcher, an All-ACC pick a year ago, gives Miami a third way to hurt a defense that ranks near the bottom of the country defending the pass.
The math is simple: if Miami’s offense performs anywhere close to its first two weeks, the secondary’s injuries become a footnote. If Wake Forest’s offense holds up the way it did against Purdue, every one of those absences gets magnified in a shootout. Miami has won eight straight meetings in this series and rarely been tested by Wake Forest specifically, but this version of the Demon Deacons, with a transfer quarterback playing his best football, isn’t the same team Miami has run past in recent years.
Why this game actually tells us something
The first two games told Miami fans what they already assumed: this offense is elite, and the schedule so far was designed to prove it cheaply. Wake Forest is the first opponent capable of forcing Miami to win a different kind of game — one where the defense has to get stops against a quarterback who’s earned the benefit of the doubt through two weeks. Whatever happens in Winston-Salem tonight will say more about where this Miami team actually stands than anything from the first two Saturdays combined.