No. 12 Miami starts fast, overwhelms Florida A&M

Cam Ward threw for 304 yards and three touchdown passes and ran for another score to lead the host Miami Hurricanes to a comfortable 56-9 victory over the Florida A&M Rattlers on Saturday night in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Ward completed 20-of-26 passes for the No. 12 Hurricanes (2-0), who beat the Rattlers (2-1) for the 11th consecutive time since losing the first meeting between the two schools in 1979.

Miami followed up its convincing win over Florida last week by jumping out to a big lead early and scoring touchdowns on its first three drives and a field goal on its fourth series.

Ward exited the game after scoring on an 8-yard touchdown run with 3:43 left in the third quarter that put the Hurricanes ahead 46-9.

Backup Reese Poffenbarger played the remainder of the game and completed 6 of 7 passes for 20 yards.

Florida A&M picked up its only points off two field goals by Cameron Gillis and another by Michael Smith.

Rattlers starting quarterback Daniel Richardson, a Miami native, completed 13 of 17 passes for 135 yards but threw an interception on Florida A&M's opening drive to Wesley Bissainthe. This led to a 17-yard touchdown pass from Ward to Elijah Arroyo.

Tyler Baron recorded three of Miami's five sacks.

Damien Martinez ran for 90 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries. Mark Fletcher Jr. and Jordan Lyle each scored touchdowns and combined for 82 rushing yards as the Hurricanes played numerous reserves in the second half. Chris Johnson Jr. was one of those backups and caught a touchdown pass.

Xavier Restrepo caught four passes for 104 yards and a touchdown to lead all Miami receivers.

Florida A&M was led by Jamari Gassett with 61 yards on five catches. But the Rattlers were held to only 52 yards rushing.

Florida A&M will look to rebound next week when it visits Troy on Sept. 21 while Miami will try to remain unbeaten when it hosts Ball State next Saturday.

--Field Level Media