Toney sets Hurricanes record, then redeems himself to lead Miami to playoff win
Malachi Toney made history twice for the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday.
The first was merely a formality, him needing to haul in two catches to set the school’s single-season receptions record.
The second proved integral for the Hurricanes and served as redemption for a rare mishap by the freshman phenom earlier in the game.
Toney’s 11-yard touchdown reception on a Carson Beck shovel pass with 1:44 left in regulation was the game-winning score in No. 10 Miami’s 10-3 win over the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies in the first-round of the College Football Playoff — UM’s first-ever playoff win since the format was introduced in 2014.
The touchdown came one possession after Toney fumbled the ball near midfield, which gave Texas A&M an opportunity to potentially take the lead. The defense held its ground, as it did all game, setting the stage for Toney’s late heroics.
“It meant the world. That’s the best thing you can ask for,” Toney said. “You fumble, then you come back, and the coach trusts you enough to put the ball back in your hands with the game on the line.”
Toney was emotional on the sideline after the fumble — his first since the state championship game his freshman year at Plantation American Heritage. Teammates, namely running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (who was on that American Heritage team with Toney), went over to console him and make sure he knew they had confidence in him.
“The second I saw his head drop, I immediately rushed to him,” Fletcher said. “I said, ‘God’s putting you through some adversity right now. That’s it. It’s just a little adversity. You see all that time we’ve got on the clock? Man, let’s go get it.’”
They went and got it.
Fletcher did a lot of the heavy lifting on the drive, hitting a 56-yard run to begin the possession and rushing for 75 yards on the first five plays of the possession overall.
And then, with 1:50 left on the clock, Miami facing third and 5 and the Aggies trying to get a stop, offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson switched things up. Beck took the snap and flipped the ball to Toney in front of him. Toney ran to his right and outpaced the Aggies defense into the end zone.
“Everybody trusts him,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “I mean, a lot of the reason why we’re here today is because of his playmaking ability. He brings so much energy to the team. They trust him. They love them, and they knew that there was going to be some more football to be played. He was going to be a big part of the reason why we’re going to have a chance to pull out the game.”
His impact is shown in the Hurricanes’ record book.
With five catches for 22 yards and the touchdown on Saturday, Toney now has 89 catches for 992 yards and eight receiving touchdowns.
Toney’s second catch against Texas A&M on Saturday was his 86th of the season, which set the school record for most receptions in a season. It surpassed the previous mark of 85 set by Xavier Restrepo in the 2023 season.
The receiving yards were already a school record for a freshman and has him 8 yards shy of becoming just the seventh player in Miami history to have 1,000 receiving yards in a season. Should he get there, he will join a list that includes Charleston Rambo (1,172 yards, 2021 season), Allen Hurns (1,162 yards, 2013 season), Leonard Hankerson (1,156 yards, 2010 season), Restrepo (1,127 yards, 2024 season; 1,092 yards, 2023 season), Eddie Brown (1,114 yards, 1984 season) and Andre Johnson (1092 yards, 2002 season).
And his eight touchdown catches are also a freshman record.
Miami knew almost instantly what type of talent they had in Toney, but they didn’t want to put too much pressure on him too early.
“He’s been the same person since the beginning,” Dawson said Monday. “But I do think there’s an understanding that the kid should be in high school still. If you go back and look at how the season has progressed, there’s a journey, and you let that journey just play out. We’re sitting there through camp, and this kid’s making plays every day at practice. You’re like, in your mind, ‘Man, this kid’s got a chance to be special.’ But ultimately, practice doesn’t matter. You guys aren’t out there. They don’t have 80,000 people come watch practice. Ultimately, you have to do it in the game. And so I was hoping that he would carry that ability over to a game. The game wouldn’t be, quote, unquote, too big for him, right?”
Dawson ultimately had nothing to worry about on that front.
Toney led the Hurricanes with six catches for 82 yards in their season-opener, a 27-24 upset win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
He never looked back after that.
Toney had four games with at least 100 receiving yards, doing so against Florida State, Louisville, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh. Toney also had at least six catches in eight of 12 games entering Saturday.
Even more: Toney did not have a dropped pass on 106 targets entering Saturday, according to Pro Football Focus. Illinois’ Hank Beatty had the next highest amount of targets without a drop this season, with 81 — 25 fewer than Toney.
And, for good measure, Toney also has two touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown this season.
That production landed him as the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Rookie of the Year, first-team All-ACC and a second-team All-American by the Associated Press and Sporting News. He is also a finalist for the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.
“The game was not too big for him,” Dawson said. “He just kept stacking games and stacking games. Then it became part of the process of like, ‘Hey, this kid can do a lot more, so let’s push the limits of what we can do with it.’”
They pushed him to the limit week after week.
And when things got tough Saturday, on the biggest stage thus far in his young career, Toney stepped up once again.
“What gave me the confidence was just knowing the guys that were depending on me,” Toney said. “I couldn’t stay down forever. They were depending on me to make a play. That’s what I did.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM.
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