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PITTSBURGH (Ticker) -- The defense of No. 22 Miami figured out a way to stop red-hot Pittsburgh quarterback David Priestley -- knock him out of the game. Behind 131 yards and a touchdown from freshman running back Clinton Portis, the Hurricanes slammed their Big East Conference rivals, 33-3, as Priestley was sidelined early with a shoulder injury. The third 100-yard game for Portis helped Miami (5-3, 3-0 Big East) beat Pittsburgh for the 10th time in the last 11 meetings. The Hurricanes have a 17-9-1 lead in the all-time series. "I thought we came out and played with a lot of urgency and consistency," Miami coach Butch Davis said. "Pitt's defense made it a rugged game and we knew it would be that way when we came in. Our defense played well for the third consecutive week and created some turnovers for us. Defense is what makes things happen happen on this team." Miami held Pittsburgh to 265 yards of offense -- 72 on the ground -- and racked up 426. James Jackson added 69 yards on 16 carries as the Hurricanes ran for 190 yards. Kenny Kelly completed 13-of-33 passes for 236 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions. Last week, Priestley passed for a career-high 407 yards to keep the Panthers (4-5, 2-4) close in a 30-17 loss to third-ranked Virginia Tech. But he gave way to John Turman in the first quarter today as Pittsburgh lost for the fourth time in five games. "Priestley got hurt pretty early in a scramble play," Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris said. "He saw a guy coming over the top and tried to get out of the way. It was kind of self-inflicted and very unfortunate. I'm not sure if he is a leader on the team yet, but he is a player, and anytime you lose a player, you are going to take a few steps back." Priestley was 6-of-13 for 67 yards and an interception before leaving. Turman was 10-of-22 for 101 yards with an interception and Matt O'Connor came on to go 2-of-6 and was picked off once. "When you don't get as much practice during the week, you still have to be mentally ready," Turman said. "The coaches have the final say, but I'm always going to practice like I'm going to get playing time." "When Priestley came out and Turman came in, we got out of rhythm," admitted Pittsburgh running back Nick Goings, who had 35 yards on eight carries. "The past couple of weeks, Priestley has been playing well, but when Turman came in, we lost our rhythm. It just wasn't us out there." Miami took the lead for good, 10-3, with 6:36 left in the second quarter when Kelly bulled into the end zone from one yard to cap a 10-play, 73-yard drive. He completed a pass to Santana Moss on fourth down to keep alive the drive, which countered a tying field goal by Nick Lotz from 34 yards. The score remained the same until Miami exploded for 23 points in the final quarter. Kelly started the outburst with an eight-yard TD toss to tight end Daniel "Bubba" Franks 19 seconds into the fourth. "We just went out there and played our game," Kelly said. "We knew we needed to be consistent and establish the run. The first half was slow, but once we got clicking, we were able to make things happen. I thought the key to our passing game was our running game. Once we established the run, we were able to pass the ball." Andy Crosland, who started the scoring with a 28-yard field goal 3:38 into the game, connected from 26 yards with 10:40 left to make it 20-3. The Hurricanes are 130-13 (.909) when scoring first since 1983. They had not done so in four games. On the first play after defensive tackle Matt Sweeney recovered a Pittsburgh fumble, Portis, who carried 20 times, ran 34 yards for a TD to put the game out of reach. He is Miami's first true freshman and the second first-year player to have three 100-yard games. James Scott added the final touchdown with 3:31 left, running in from seven yards. Panthers receiver Latef Grim had seven catches for 85 yards, but true freshman standout Antonio Bryant was limited to two and 20.
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