Ranking the top 50 Miami Hurricanes after spring football

The Miami Hurricanes wrapped up spring football one week ago. 

The month of offseason football was Mario Cristobal’s first opportunity to evaluate the Hurricanes on a football field and he was pleased with the progress the team made during the practices. 

“You wish you had 15 more of these practice, but you don’t,” Cristobal said following the spring game. “So now it is about choices and decisions by the players in order to take that next step. We have to grow up and we have to be mature. Everybody has 100 days until game one, so what are you going to do with those 100 days? I know what we want to see. We want to see a team that plays with toughness, a passion, and physicality and resiliency. To get there, it is not a magic formula and there is no secret sauce or hocus-pocus. The Canes have to get to work.”

Cristobal and this UM staff is looking to build depth that goes 22 players deep on both sides of the ball. With that in mind, this article looks to rank the top 50 Miami Hurricanes coming out of spring.

How is this ranking formulated? It is an inexact science that must evaluate the talent, production, projected role, and injury status of the player. 

Miami’s offense will be coordinated by Josh Gattis, who won the Broyles Award as the top assistant in college football at Michigan in 2021.

Gattis will inherit a talented quarterback in Tyler Van Dyke, who threw for 2,931 yards with 25 touchdowns and six interceptions in ten games in 2021.

Gattis will look to build a balanced attack around a UM personnel group that includes veterans on the offensive line like Zion Nelson, DJ Scaife, and Jakai Clark, talented tight ends like Will Mallory and Elijah Arroyo, a group of talented, but inexperienced receivers in Frank Ladson, Key’Shawn Smith, Xavier Restrepo, Romello Brinson, Jacolby George, and Brashard Smith, and a deep stable of backs in Jaylan Knighton, Henry Parrish, Don Chaney Jr, Thad Franklin, and Cody Brown. 

The defense will be coordinated by veteran coach Kevin Steele, who took 2021 off, but was previously the defensive coordinator at Auburn from 2016-20.

Steele inherits a defense that must improve from a poor showing in 2021. The Hurricanes allowed 28.2 points per game and 389 yards per game. Miami ranked as the worst tackling Power Five team in the country, according to Pro Football Focus. With all that being said, however, Miami does feature some talented pieces on that side of the ball in DT Leonard Taylor, DB James Williams, and CB Tyrique Stevenson. 

How do we rank Miami’s top 50 players coming out of spring (including the transfer additions that are coming)?

Read on for a look.