Will several key Canes be back in 2026? What they said. And personnel nuggets
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes as we creep closer to Monday’s UM-Indiana championship game at Hard Rock Stadium (7:30 p.m., ESPN):
▪ A half dozen prominent Canes have big decisions to make after Monday’s game.
Defensive tackle Ahmad Moten and left tackle Markel Bell said Saturday that they haven’t decided if they’re returning to UM next season or turning pro.
There’s optimism inside UM that Moten will return. And UM is braced for Bell to turn pro. But until they definitively announce their plans, there will be some uncertainty.
Moten said of turning pro: “I don’t know yet. I’ve got to sit down and talk to my dad, talk to coaches, talk to my family, talk to my sister and agent, and we are going to see after the game on Monday.”
Bell, who has been projected as a potential fourth-round pick, said: “I’m not sure yet. It’s not my focus. Returning is most definitely an option. And also, it’s an equal option for me to go to the league.”
Linebacker Mo Toure can apply for another season of eligibility, and probably has a decent chance of getting it, but said he hasn’t decided if he will.
“My head hasn’t touched any of that,” he said. “I’m just focused on winning this championship… I love Miami, I love the coaches, I love the staff, I love the culture. I’ll focus on all of that after the game, talk to my agent and talk to my people and see what’s the best option.”
Because receiver Jojo Trader hasn’t been playing a ton of snaps, there have been questions about whether he will enter the portal before next Saturday’s deadline for UM and Indiana players.
“I have no doubt in my mind that he will be back,” receivers coach Kevin Beard said. “He had a rough beginning of the season from an injury and concussion situation. He’s been working through it and getting himself back to where he knows and we know he can be.”
With Duke quarterback Darian Mensah expected to transfer to Miami, the Hurricanes are braced for the possibility - if not probability - of Emory Williams leaving. An American Athletic team has interest in bringing him in as a potential starter. And running back Jordan Lyle, who has slipped to fourth on the depth chart, also faces a decision.
▪ One of the remarkable aspects of this 15-0 Indiana team is a defense that is second in the country in points allowed (11.0 per game).
In the past month, the Hoosiers have held an Ohio State team averaging 33.4 points to 10; an Alabama team averaging 29.5 to 3; and an Oregon team averaging 36.9 to 22.
How are they this good without a slew of five-star prospects?
“I think the first two things that stick out is they don’t give up a lot of explosive plays, and they’re hard to run the ball against, which if you just take those two factors, that pretty much will tell you the defense is pretty good,” said UM offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, whose unit is 30th in the nation in points per game at 31.6.
“But I do think that they have a lot of older guys on defense. Look, the scheme is great. Like what they do on defense is really, really solid and really elite. It’s like you have to have the players, right? So they’ve assembled a bunch of older players that really know that system really well, and they’re very seldom out of position. And I think they know it so well that it allows them to dissect what you’re doing pretty quickly…
“That has a lot to do with just having older kids that really understand the system. And they can just get things lined up quick and dissect it quick… And they really, really play hard. And they do a really good job of mixing up the coverages. And they don’t really get in too big of a rhythm of like being in one all the time or a couple times in a row or in the same situation.”
▪ Dawson’s counter? “We’re going to try to do some things that obviously cause a little confusion on their side, and we’ll see how successful it is,” he said. “But ultimately, I anticipate this game to be one that we’re going to have to grind it out.”
Dawson admitted that whether to stick with the run game or throw deep or use gimmick plays is “an internal struggle at times, because inherently I want to be aggressive. But ultimately I want to win the game. And so I think I have to be in tune to the flow of the game and what’s working. And we communicate between drives, between every drive. We have iPads now, so we watch and try to pinpoint what’s working.
“Ultimately we want to be aggressive, but I call it cautiously aggressive. We are a team that leans on the run game. We’ve done it all year. And so it starts with that, but ultimately we have to push the ball down the field at times, too. And I just gotta go back and forth with when to take those chances.”
▪ UM added centers in the transfer portal each of the past three seasons, with Matt Lee in 2023, Zach Carpenter in 2024 and James Brockermeyer this season. But offensive line coach Alex Mirabal said that won’t be the case next season.
“We’re staying inside,” Mirabal said Saturday.
The internal options include Nino Francavilla and SJ Alofaituli. Ryan Rodriguez conceivably could try to get another season of eligibility.
Is the freshman Alofaituli ready next year to be a heavy-snap player? “He’s ready now,” Mirabal said.
▪ Couple notable things from Malachi Toney on Saturday:
Asked when he started thinking about attending UM, he said: “What turned me to Miami was Nick Saban stepping down [at Alabama]. I used to love Nick Saban. Yeah. So it was Nick Saban.”
He said he was given the nickname ‘Baby Jesus’ “by someone on Facebook when I was 8.” He was playing quarterback in youth league at Washington Park at the time.
The humble Toney downplays that nickname.
Right tackle Francis Mauigoa said he asked Anez Cooper about Toney in spring practice. “Anez is like, ‘That’s Baby Jesus.’ And I was like, Baby Jesus? I’m a religious guy, and to be able to be called Baby Jesus, you got to be something special.”
▪ Quarterback Carson Beck mentioned that he and Mario Cristobal carved out weekly together-time this season.
“Each and every week, we just sit down for 20, 30 minutes, usually after our Wednesday or Thursday meeting, and we kind of just talk about football, about life. He just checks in. I really appreciated that from him because that’s really helped our relationship transform and grow over the season.
“I’m so grateful and thankful for Coach Cristobal and this opportunity that he’s given me. I still remember back almost a year ago -- well, I guess it would be a little bit over a year ago at this point, the first time that me and him talked on the phone. I had a huge smile. I was so thankful for him wanting me to come down to the University of Miami, for wanting me to come play for him.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2026 at 5:47 PM.
