Malachi Toney added another loud entry to his Miami résumé on Saturday against Pitt, and he did it early.
The Hurricanes star needed just 31 yards to move past the 2,000-yard mark for his career entering the game, and he cleared that threshold with room to spare in the first half. By halftime, Toney had 12 catches for 159 yards and two touchdowns, giving Pitt fits from the jump.
His second score came on a 52-yard catch-and-run that showcased exactly why he has been so difficult to corral this season. Toney shook off multiple tackles and kept the play alive for the long touchdown. He has also become Darian Mensah’s go-to option on third downs.
"He brings everything," Mario Cristobal said about Toney's incredible first half vs. Pitt.
"Everything in his heart and soul all the time. He's always depended upon and counted upon."
Toney’s surge keeps pushing him up Miami’s all-time receiving charts. By the end of the game, he could catch Stacy Coley’s 2,222 yards for sixth place on the Hurricanes’ career list. Xavier Restrepo owns the school record at 2,844 yards, and that mark is already in danger this season.
The pace is staggering. Restrepo needed four years to get there, while Toney may pass that total in two seasons.
That’s even more striking when you stack it against what he already did as a freshman. At 18, he set Miami single-season records with 109 catches and 1,211 yards, and now he could wind up owning the program’s receiving records before turning 20.
This was also the third time this season Toney has gone for at least 12 catches in a game. He opened the year with a 12-catch, 234-yard performance against Stanford, then added 12 catches for 114 yards against Wake Forest in Week 3. Last week against FSU, he finished with 11 catches for 154 yards.
And at this point, the conversation is getting hard to avoid. Michael Irvin still stands as one of the standard-bearers at Miami, with Santana Moss and Reggie Wayne right there in the mix too. But through 23 career games, Toney has forced his way into that discussion.
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Mario Cristobals Postgame Moment Kept Miamis Feud In The Spotlight
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The interaction looked tense but still cordial, even if Cristobals gestures were read by some as more forceful than routine. Pitt was already dealing with a quarterback injury that shaped the way the game unfolded, so the result and the atmosphere around it were both lopsided in Miamis favor. Still, with the feud lingering in the background, the postgame exchange added one more layer to a rivalry that has been impossible to separate from the scoreboard. [Read more 🡒]