Nick Saban reacts to Miami falling to Louisville: 'They needed to lose'

Louisville stunned No. 2 Miami Friday night to knock off the Hurricanes from the ranks of the unbeaten. Nick Saban said Miami needed a loss like that for, lack of a better term, a factory reset!

Miami was rolling into the game, coming off a bye week, and trying to make an argument to be the top team in the country. But they were humbled in front of their home crowd as QB Carson Beck threw four interceptions, losing 24-21.

The Hurricanes are by no means out of the College Football Playoff or ACC race, but they’ll have to look in the mirror now. They have the extra day to create some better habits, per Saban.

“In my opinion, Miami needed to lose,” Saban said on College GameDay. “I used to tell our team all the time when we played a game like that, we needed to lose, because we need to learn from the things that we’re not doing to create the habits we need to have to play winning football on a consistent basis.”

In the loss, Beck threw for 271 yards, but no touchdowns while tossing four picks. The run game was silenced too, as the Hurricanes had just 63 rushing yards on the night.

“Obviously disappointing evening and outcome,” Miami head coach Mario Cristobal said postgame. “At the end of the day credit to them, certainly they played a good game, but we didn’t coach well enough we didn’t execute well enough, and certainly came up short — just not good enough. 

“A lot of different aspects, certainly ourselves with some penalties, but really again, our guys played with a great effort and all the way to the end. We gave ourselves a chance to tie it and win the game, but did not overcome all the issues that we caused ourselves, and again, it’s really good play by the opponent as well.”

Beck’s final interception was the last offensive play of the game for Miami. His pass was undercut and picked off, eliminating any chance of a late rally down three.

“Well, with over 30 seconds left in a couple timeouts, we’re still at 48 yards [out] for the field goal,” Cristobal said. “We’re still going try to move the ball to make it closer, and try to win the game, which is a regular process for us.”

Miami stays at home next weekend for a chance to get right. The Hurricanes take on Stanford at 7:00 p.m. ET on October 25th.