Through the Smoke: A Miami Hurricanes football podcast · 247Sports, Miami, Miami Hurricanes, Miami football, Miami athletics, College Football

Game Preview: No. 3 Miami vs. No. 18 Florida State

October 3, 2025·1 hr 19 min·5 clips

Florida State's offense has flipped from worst to first, averaging 53 points and 600 yards per game this season.

Start with the bodies up front. The conversation uses Florida State's defensive line as the way into the game, because Miami's run game decides a lot of what this preview becomes. Daryl Jackson is the headache. He is described as freakishly big and long, probably the defender with the clearest NFL body, and the one guy who can make Miami slide help his way. Still, the numbers matter. Virginia apparently put extra attention on Jackson and still ran for like 250, which keeps this from turning into a one-man panic segment. Miami may not need to overdo it. The host does not sound sold on dumping three bodies into Jackson every snap, even while admitting he can cause problems. Then the conversation widens. Daniel Lyons comes up as an older Homestead player and one of the few head-to-head recruiting wins Florida State had over Miami, with Mario Cristobal not part of that recruitment. The freshman piece matters too. Mandrell gets credit for playing pretty good football for a first-year player, while Kevin sounds more like another large body in the rotation than a settled answer. That leads to the blunt read: outside of Jackson, Florida State's defensive line sounds pretty unimpressive. It does not land as a cheap shot, more like the conclusion after going player by player. The Florida comparison shapes the ending. Miami did not need to throw much in that game, according to the host, because it pounded a better defense and controlled the terms. Carson Beck gets spared the overanalysis. The closing view is that people have picked apart the Florida passing performance too much, especially when Miami never needed that game to become a volume passing test. Saturday night could follow a similar script. Florida State still gets respect as a good team, and the expectation is a competitive rivalry game, not a clean mismatch.

As heard by us

A trench-first Miami-FSU preview that treats the box score as a clue, not a verdict.

This Miami-Florida State preview stays close to the line of scrimmage, which is where it should be. The hosts keep coming back to Daryl Jackson, the rest of the FSU front, and what Miami can actually carry over from the Florida game.

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Why you'd press play

A Miami-FSU preview that helps you read the trenches before Saturday night.

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