Mirabal offers insight on a key UM decision. And offensive line, tight end news
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes offensive line and tight end notes:
▪ The Canes have added transfer portal centers for three consecutive years — Matt Lee and Zach Carpenter in 2023 and 2024, and TCU’s James Brockermeyer this season.
UM offensive line coach Alex Mirabal said the preference, in the future, would be to find starting centers through recruiting.
“The goal at center is like the goal at all other positions,” he said in a conversation last week. “This is two years in a row we have 15 scholarship O-linemen and only one is a transfer portal kid. It’s not because it’s a center. It’s because we didn’t feel we had a guy that was ready to take on those responsibilities. Coach and I have talked about — heading into last season, ‘Do we have a guy that we trust having your hand on the football when you’re in the swamp against Florida [to open last season]?’
“This year, it was, ‘Do we have a guy that we feel is going to be prepared and ready to put his hand on the ball at Hard Rock against Notre Dame [in the Aug. 31 opener]?’ Our thing was we need to find an experienced guy, find a guy who has been through the wars in the trenches. That’s what drove us to go find James.”
But Mirabal said the Canes feel good about their centers added in recruiting: “We feel with SJ [four-star freshman] Seuseu Alofaituli, Max Bunchanan, Nino Francavilla, Ryan Rodriguez, we should be able to stop that. That’s our druthers. Our druthers is to be able to rely on our homegrown guys.”
Rodriguez seems likely to back up Michael McCoy at left guard and back up Brockermeyer at center, though competitions are ongoing at both positions.
▪ Right guard Anez Cooper, who has played more snaps for the Hurricanes than any other player on offense, said he’s determined to perform at a high level after a 2024 season that was “not at all” to his standard.
“I took a drop because I wasn’t 100% healthy,” he said. “Second game last season, I had an ankle injury, and putting pressure on it, I couldn’t come out of my stance as I should. Now I’m healthy.
“I feel I owe a lot to my team. I feel I didn’t play what I could have been last year. I’m taking everything personal. I wasn’t as impactful as I should be in the run. I could have played way better in the run and the pass. I’ve got no excuse for that. Now that I’m 100 percent, this season will be very personal for me. I know I can play so much better.”
Cooper said there’s something else he’s trying to fix.
“I’ll go through a whole first half with one technique and I’ll get bored with it because I’ll be winning every rep and then I try something else,” Cooper admitted, adding that Mirabal “tells me to stay consistent with stuff I do throughout the game and don’t get tired of winning.”
▪ Right tackle Francis Mauogia enters the season considered one of the top three tackle draft prospects, including with Alabama’s Kadyn Proctor and Utah’s Spencer Fano.
He said being the first player drafted at his position “is everyone’s goal, my goal too. I know nobody is going to work harder than me.”
The 6-6, 330-pound junior earned second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors last season despite being slowed somewhat by spring 2024 labrum surgery on both shoulders.
He said he benefitted by attending the Master Mind offensive line clinic in Texas this summer. Teammates Cooper, Markel Bell and Brockermeyer accompanied him. NFL standout linemen Lane Johnson and Dion Dawkins and former Pro Bowlers Terron Armstead and Joe Thomas were among those who spoke.
“It was special to be a part of it,” Mauigoa said. “I was able to learn from a lot of legends. I’ve been studying Peneii Sewell and Lane Johnson because they’re on the right side” of the line.
Incidentally, Bell, UM’s left tackle, has grown to 6-9, with a 7-2 wingspan.
▪ It will be interesting to track the careers of UM’s two freshmen tight ends, Brock Schott and Luka Gilbert. 247 Sports rated them 10th and 20th, respectively, among all tight ends in the 2025 class.
Schott is more of a pure pass catcher, similar in size (6-3, 245 pounds) and skill set as Lofton. He had 1,673 receiving yards in final three years of high school in Indiana, including 11 touchdowns over his final two years while also playing defensive line. Gilbert, at 6-7 and 255 pounds, is more of a blocking tight end in line who has put an emphasis on improving his route running since getting to Miami.
Hurricanes tight ends coach Cody Woodiel said Gilbert is “doing great. He’s taking reps with the twos, threes primarily right now. But he’s made some great plays throughout camp so far. With.. the way he can lift people,... the sky is the limit for him.”
Woodiel, on Schott: “He’s on the same trajectory as Luka. Both are different in size and skill set. Those two guys and the way Brock shows up every day and works is a testament to him. He’s one of the hardest-working kids I’ve been around.”
▪ New backup tight end Alex Bauman should be a strong red zone threat at 6-4; of his 20 catches at Tulane last season, seven went for touchdowns.
“Physically what he’s done with his body – up 10, 12 pounds from last year — he’s done an unbelievable job,” Woodiel said.
▪ Noted college football analyst and podcaster Josh Pate named UM starting tight end Elija Lofton as the Canes’ likely breakout player: “Elijah Arroyo two years in a row was our breakout player. We finally nailed it. And now it’s Loftn. He may be one of the best pure football players on Miami’s team.”
Bauman said of Lofton: “He does everything fast, quick. He knows how to win one-on-ones, settles in zones, catches and runs, has shiftiness in him, power. He’s really one of a kind.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 12:32 PM.
