Miami’s second fall scrimmage on Greentree brought camp to the edge of game prep, and the biggest takeaway is pretty simple: this team looks loaded on both sides of the ball.
The quarterback room continues to draw confidence, starting with Darian Mensah. The view here is blunt: “Darian Mensah is Mensah.
I don't lose a second of sleep about him. He's going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the country, easy.”
Behind him, Dereon Coleman has started to climb. He’s still not the starter or the No. 2, but he’s stacking solid practices and earning more reps. His arm has looked especially lively, with a quick release and no windup.
Luke Nickel is also making progress. His processing is speeding up, he’s getting through reads faster, and his running ability keeps showing up. The comparison made here was to a Gunnar Stockton type - a quarterback who rises once the pads come on because he can absorb contact and extend plays.
In the backfield, CharMar Brown had another strong day. His yards per carry don’t tell the whole story because of how he’s used in short-yardage situations.
Add in the long touchdown against Florida that was called back, and the numbers look better. The bigger point is that he’s a reliable runner who doesn’t need multiple cracks to fall down.
“He's not going down on one tackle. Never too high, never too low - you know exactly what you're getting.”
Javian Mallory is another freshman making a case. The buzz around him is about consistency, which is usually the first sign a young player is truly ready. He can catch, block, and run, and even if he doesn’t jump off the screen every snap, he’s been different once the pads are on.
Miami’s passing game should stretch the field more this year, and it’s not just because Mensah can throw deep. The receiver group has real vertical speed. Josh Moore, Malachi Toney, Cooper Barkate, Vance Spafford, Dre Jacobs and others can all threaten the top of a defense.
Barkate, in particular, sounds like someone who’s ready to feast on the attention created by Toney. He’s the kind of receiver who can win when isolated: smooth, agile, strong at the catch point, and able to make contested grabs. The point being made about him was that he arrived from Duke as a thousand-yard receiver and still wanted to improve rather than cash in, and that mindset has shown up since spring.
Elija Lofton also kept moving in the right direction. He was explosive again, and there’s still belief he can reach another level, the one where the broken tackles and touchdowns start showing up in real games.
Up front, the offensive line looks settled in three key spots. Samson Okunlola is at left tackle, Matthew McCoy is at right tackle, and Ryan Rodriguez is at center. Those jobs don’t sound like they’re changing hands.
That unit also has the benefit of going against two of the best defensive tackles in college football every day in practice, which should harden them for the regular season.
The defensive line, even after losing Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor, still left camp with a strong impression. The word used to describe the group was “disruptive,” and that fits the report. No matter the front, the result has been the same: pressure and quarterbacks getting hit.
It starts inside with Ahmad Moten and Justin Scott, who are repeatedly collapsing the pocket. Keona Davis, Booker Pickett, and Asharri Charles also stood out by getting into the backfield and making life miserable for the offense.
The secondary has its own freshman rising fast in JJ Dunnigan. The praise there was loud: if the defensive back room were thin, he’d be an easy freshman All-American call.
He’s handling outside receivers, tight ends and slot targets, and he can blitz and help against the run too. The expectation is that he’ll be heavily involved, in a similar role to what Bryce Fitzgerald did last season.
Camdin Portis, the son of former UM and NFL back Clinton Portis, has also taken a step from spring to fall. He’s getting more comfortable with the playbook and finding the right spots more consistently.
Jaelen Waters and Dylan Day continue to look like players who can be used on the back end, and Jake Weinberg is trending well at kicker. He was the best touchback guy in the country last year by a wide margin, and over the last two weeks his field-goal consistency has caught up to his leg.
There was also a note on the fifth-year eligibility ruling and Miami’s possible involvement. The read here is that the Hurricanes don’t appear likely to be active in that market with the season so close, though it hasn’t been ruled out entirely.
Zoom out, and the bigger picture is clear. This offense is still built to run the football, and that hasn’t changed under Mario.
The size, the physicality, and the depth in the running back room all point in that direction, and the young linemen showed it again by bulldozing people. There should still be plenty of explosive passes layered in.
Defensively, Corey Hetherman’s scheme, the talent across the back end and the line, and a roster now in year two of the system all add up to a real chance at a top-five defense.
Camp wrapped with health, competition, and strong buy-in across the roster. The strength staff got credit for helping the team hold up in brutal heat, and the overall feeling coming out of camp was strong. The quarterback is experienced, the skill talent is deep, the line has enough and just needs reps, and the defense is the headliner.
With two weeks left before Stanford, the optimism is obvious.
In Other News...
Miami Offensive Line Still Has Something To Prove This Camp
Ryan Rodriguez came away from Miamis recent scrimmage with the same broad message plenty of veteran linemen deliver in August: there is promise up front, but there is also plenty of teaching left to do. He spoke about freshman blockers Ben Congdon and Jackson Cantwell as eager learners, the kind of newcomers who are already trying to absorb the details that matter when an offensive line starts to take shape.
Rodriguez also underscored why the Hurricanes keep cross-training along the line, since that kind of flexibility helps build chemistry and a better feel for how each spot works. Even with the scrimmage serving as another checkpoint in camp, he made clear the group is still chasing the standard it expects of itself, which leaves Miami with a familiar late-summer storyline: the talent is there, but the proof still has to show up on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Miamis Loaded Offense Creates One Huge Numbers Question For 2026
With Miamis offense looking deeper and more dangerous on paper, the conversation around 2026 naturally turns to how the numbers will actually get spread around. A full 13-game projection cycle for Darian Mensah, Malachi Toney, Cooper Barkate, Joshua Moore, Daylyn Upshaw, Mark Fletcher, Girard Pringle and CharMar Brown paints a picture of a unit with no shortage of options, whether the ball is in the air or on the ground. For a Hurricanes team built to stress defenses in multiple ways, the appeal is obvious, but so is the challenge of figuring out who gets fed first.
The biggest question is not whether Miami can generate production, but how much of it one quarterback and one primary target can realistically absorb when the room is this crowded. Those projected passing yards, receptions, rushing yards and touchdowns are useful as a guide, yet they also underline how much of this remains a guess until the opener starts settling roles. In a season where expectations for the offense are high, the numbers game may end up being just as interesting as the scoreboard. [Read more 🡒]
Miami Just Cleared An Early Hurdle With Elite Safety Recruit
Miami picked up a useful marker in the early stages of the Jaelyn Easterling-Flores sweepstakes when the 2028 four-star safety from Desert Edge released his top six. The Hurricanes made the cut alongside Auburn, Georgia Tech, LSU, Oklahoma and Texas, a sign that Mario Cristobal and his staff remain in the mix for one of the cycles more highly regarded defensive backs even before the process has really begun to settle in.
Easterling-Flores has already logged official visits to Oregon, Florida, Auburn, Texas and Notre Dame, but Miami has not yet hosted him. He said this will be his final list, with no more trimming ahead, so the next step for the Hurricanes will be turning that spot on the list into a real trip to Coral Gables and, eventually, a stronger claim in a recruitment that already has plenty of heavyweight competition. [Read more 🡒]