Malachi Toney’s freshman season has the chance to set Miami Hurricanes records
Malachi Toney doesn’t take for granted that he has someone like Michael Irvin with a front-row seat watching him take off during his freshman season with the Miami Hurricanes. Nor does his lose sight of the fact that two other Hurricanes wide receiver legends in Santana Moss and Andre Johnson saw potential in him during his pee-wee days growing up in South Florida.
“It’s great,” Toney said Tuesday when asked about Irvin being a regular on the Hurricanes’ sidelines. “Being around a great wide receiver that did a lot of things that I want to do is having him around is really a big deal. ... I come back to the sideline, and it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s really Michael Irvin there cheering me on.’ It’s just a blessing.”
With each passing week, Toney is getting closer to adding his name to the Hurricanes’ record books with those greats.
Entering No. 10 Miami’s road game against SMU on Saturday (noon, ESPN), Toney leads the team with 43 catches and 562 receiving yards through seven games.
That puts him on pace for 74 catches and 963 receiving yards through the end of the 12-game regular season with five games left to play.
Both would set school records for a freshman, surpassing both marks set by Ahmmon Richards (49 catches, 934 yards) in the 2016 season.
But with UM already clinching a bowl game, Toney has a chance to do even more. The school record for receptions is 79 set by Charleston Rambo in 2021 and no other UM player has ever surpassed 75 catches. In fact, only eight have ever had 60 or more catches in a season.
Toney also has the potential to become the seventh player in UM history to hit 1,000 receiving yards in a season, joining a group that includes Rambo (1,172 in 2021), Allen Hurns (1,162 in 2013), Leonard Hankerson (1,156 in 2010), Xavier Restrepo (1,127 in 2024 and 1,092 in 2023), Eddie Brown (1,114 in 2002) and Andre Johnson (1,092 in 2002).
“He’s out there just moving like a vet,” said running back Mark Fletcher Jr., who overlapped for a year with Toney at Plantation American Heritage.
It’s all coming together nicely for Toney, who reclassified to enroll at Miami a year early and has lived up to internal expectations despite just turning 18 last month. He flashed his promise during spring practices and worked himself into the starting lineup by continuing that strong preparation in fall camp.
And now, two months into his freshman season, the results are there, too. Toney made an instant impact with six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s season-opener against Notre Dame. He has at least five catches in six of seven games and has eclipsed 80 receiving yards five times, including a career-high 135 yards against Louisville on Oct. 17 — the most in a game by a UM freshman since Richards eclipsed 140 yards twice during his freshman season in 2016.
He’s a threat in open space. Of his 562 receiving yards, 353 — 62.9% — have come after the catch. Twenty of his 43 receptions — 46.5% — have gone for at least 10 yards.
But his game extends beyond just catching passes and running routes. He handles his own in run blocking and is a threat in the punt return game as well.
“There’s nothing that has surprised me about him,” quarterback Carson Beck said. “I mean, shoot, the first time I ever watched him, I expected [this]. It’s so funny because nobody knew what he was going to be, but I remember just telling all my family and friends about what he was going to be able to do for us this year and that we definitely had a secret weapon. That kind of went away after the first game, and even after that he’s continued to show up and just make unbelievable plays. That’s a credit to his work ethic and the effort that he gives day in and day out. So just continuing to try to get better with him and try to make sure that we’re getting everything out of him that we can.”
The rest of the Hurricanes aren’t surprised by his success either. His preparation behind the scenes, from film study to the gym to the practice field, set him up for this.
“He might be 18 years old, but he’s played a lot of football,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “And if there’s something that he doesn’t quite know or doesn’t feel comfortable with, he spends an extraordinary amount of time learning it. Now, you couple that with the fact that he is weight-room strong — he’s not a frail little guy, and he’s still growing. He’s thick, he’s strong, he’s explosive, he’s a weight room and workout junkie. I think all those things combined — and the mentality, of course — allow him to be a great football player.”
Toney knows there’s still another level to his game. He wants to be more consistent on a game to game basis, especially now that teams are game-planning for him. He wants to be more of a leader even though he’s one of the youngest guys on the team.
And like he has done all season, Toney will put in the work to get there.
“I have the success I’m having because I stay humble and stay grounded through everything,” Toney said. “No matter how much hype they give me or try to boost my head up, I still go back to work.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 12:58 PM.
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