Four crazy stats from Middle Tennessee’s beatdown of Miami

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Middle Tennessee pulled off perhaps the upset of the Week 3 slate against Miami on Saturday. But the Blue Raiders played anything like underdogs.

Middle Tennessee went into Miami Gardens, Fla., and upended the No. 25 team in the country 45-31 — a score that included two Hurricanes fourth-quarter touchdowns to make the final result look marginally better.

MORE: Full stats for Miami vs. Middle Tennessee

Miami coach Mario Cristobal has questions to answer after a second consecutive poor showing from his team. The defeat follows a 17-14 loss to Texas A&M in Week 3. Perhaps the worst part of the loss for Cristobal and the Canes was how many Middle Tennessee scores came off explosive plays.

Chief among the Blue Raiders’ playmakers was quarterback Chase Cunningham, who had more than 400 yards of total offense and four total touchdowns.

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With that, The Sporting News looks at four crazy stats from Middle Tennessee’s victory over Miami:

16 completions

Cunningham, a fifth-year player, had just 16 completions on 25 attempts in the game, and still he threw for 408 yards — an incredible 16.3 yards per completion — and three touchdowns.

Per Chris Vannini of The Athletic, Cunningham is the first player to have that many passing yards on so few attempts in FBS play since at least the 2000 season:

Four completions, 327 yards

How, then, did Cunningham throw for some many yards? Look no further than completions of 71, 89, 69 and 98 yards — three of which went for touchdowns. Those passes accounted for 327 of his 408 passing yards.

Here are the touchdown passes. The 89-yard pass, a catch and run by Jaylin Lane, did not result in a score.

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Two 100-yard receivers

Naturally, Cunningham’s high-volume passing stats resulted in high-volume stats for his receivers. Two pass-catchers went for more than 100 yards: England-Chisolm (169) and Lane (130).

And those players did that with a low volume of catches: two for England-Chisolm and four for Lane. Those players averaged 84.5 and 32.5 yards per reception, respectively. A third receiver, Mitchell Howell, gained 69 yards on his one catch.

The three combined to average 61.3 yards per reception.

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Three turnovers to start the game

Miami left plenty of points on the field, starting with three turnovers. Three other drives ended with turnovers on downs.

The Hurricanes’ first offensive play of the game was a Tyler Van Dyke pass that was intercepted by Decorian Patterson. The play led to a Middle Tennessee field goal. The ensuing possession was no better: Van Dyke was intercepted by Zaylin Wood, who returned it 15 yards for a score to give Middle Tennessee a 10-0 lead.

Incredibly, Miami had a third straight turnover to start the game: a Jaylan Knighton fumble at the Middle Tennessee 40 forced by Jordan Branch and recovered by Wood.

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