Canes pummel Texas A&M

BOMBS AWAY: Quarterback Robert Marve throws during the Texas A&M game Saturday, going 16-for-22 with two touchdowns as Miami won 41-23. Photo Courtesy The Batallion, Jonny Green.

There wasn’t a hangover from the loss against Florida, as the Miami Hurricanes convincingly defeated the Texas A&M Aggies 41-23 at Kyle Stadium.

The Canes handed the Aggies their worst non-conference defeat at Kyle Field since 1988. With the win, the Hurricanes improve to 2-1 on the young season.

Head coach Randy Shannon was impressed by his team’s effort and the offense’s production.

“It was on the road, and that’s a start,” Shannon said. “We have to keep focusing and stay on point for what we have to do this year. There were a lot of big plays on offense. It’s going to come and we’re excited about it.”

Quarterback Robert Marve completed 16 of 22 passes, threw two touchdowns and one interception. More importantly, Marve picked up his first win as a Miami Hurricane.

“It feels great to get a win at the U,” Robert Marve said. “However you can get it, I’ll take it.”

Replacing Javarris James as the starting tailback, Graig Cooper ran for a career-high 128 yards and two scores. Cooper scored on the opening drive from 19 yards out, and on the following drive, he ripped one off from 51 yards out.

Already having a 17-10 lead, Miami’s Travis Benjamin returned a punt 44 yards to get the Hurricanes in position for a score.

From there, Marve found freshman Thearon Collier wide open in the endzone with 20 seconds remaining in the first half, giving the Hurricanes a 24-10 lead.

The 24 points in the first half by Miami was the most on the road since 2005.

Miami stacked up 398 yards of total offense; 261 of those were in the first half.

“It’s great to be able to hand off the ball to a guy, and the next thing you know you have a first down,” Marve said. “The offense moved the ball today. I thought we did a great job with the offensive line.”

The Canes didn’t let up in the second half. Defensive lineman Eric Moncur recorded the first interception (one-handed) of the season for the Hurricanes, which led to a Marve touchdown pass. Seconds later, Miami was back in the end zone, as linebacker Glenn Cook returned a fumble two yards for a touchdown, putting the game out of reach, 41-10.

“We finally got a turnover,” Cook said. “We’d been stressing turnovers so much. We hopefully can continue to create them.”

But the game wasn’t always going Miami’s way. On the first snap of the game, Texas A&M scored on a 62 yard screen pass to Mike Goodson. Goodson finished with 143 total yards. Quarterback Jerrod Johnson finished with three touchdowns for the Aggies in his first start.

These are things Miami will have to work on as the Hurricanes turn their attention to their first ACC game, against North Carolina.

“We want to get a win,” Cook said. “It’s our first ACC game. We’re prepared for a big game.”

“We have a huge game coming up,” Marve said. “We need to be ready for them, giving them full respect. We’re going to go in there and try to play some Miami ball.”