Hurricanes position preview: Will UM’s tight ends break out in 2026?

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Spring football is in the rearview mirror, and the Hurricanes’ season opener against Stanford is still nearly three months away, but Miami’s roster is set for the upcoming season.

The Hurricanes are coming off their best season in decades, going 10-2 in the regular season before winning three College Football Playoff games and reaching their first national championship game since the 2002 season.

Expectations are high for the 2026 season, and we will take a look at each of Miami’s position groups in the lead-up to the campaign.

Earlier this week, we previewed the wide receivers. Now we will look at Miami’s tight ends.

Who left

The Hurricanes lost a pair of tight ends from last year’s team: Alex Bauman and Brock Schott. Both spent only one season at Miami.

Bauman transferred to UM from Tulane before the season, and he was the Hurricanes’ top tight end last year, playing 699 snaps. Bauman had 18 catches for 166 yards and one touchdown.

Bauman had a 77.7 pass-blocking grade and a 52.4 run-blocking grade from Pro Football Focus. Unfortunately for Bauman and UM fans, the veteran tight end could not block an Indiana rusher on a punt near Miami’s end zone in the national title game, resulting in a crucial Hoosiers touchdown.

Bauman has not signed with an NFL team.

The Hurricanes also lost promising sophomore tight end Brock Schott to the transfer portal. Schott, a former four-star prospect, played sparingly last season. He had two catches for 24 yards. Schott transferred to Indiana.

Who returns

Miami brought back two tight ends who are expected to play big roles this season.

Junior Elija Lofton had the most catches and receiving yards among the Hurricanes’ tight ends last year. He played 451 snaps and had 23 catches for 218 yards and three touchdowns.

Pro Football Focus gave Lofton a 62.4 receiving grade with a 58.1 run-blocking grade and a 67.7 pass-blocking grade.

“You can line him up all over the field,” new Miami tight ends coach Mike Viti said. “In the vertical passing game, he’s a threat. Safeties, nickels are afraid that he’s going to run by them. So there’s that threat to stretch the field, which opens it up.”

The Hurricanes also return sophomore Luka Gilbert. The former four-star prospect played 68 snaps last season, making two catches for 37 yards. Gilbert will likely play a larger role in the offense this season.

Miami also brought back tight ends who received limited snaps last season: redshirt senior Jack Nickel, the older brother of quarterback Luke Nickel, redshirt junior Jackson Carver, redshirt sophomore Hunter Carver and redshirt junior Owen Ruskavich. The Hurricanes also moved defensive lineman Cole McConathy to tight end.

Who arrived

Miami has a new tight ends coach in Mike Viti after Cody Woodiel departed to take a position on the Ole Miss coaching staff.

Viti had spent his whole career at Army and had previously coached the offensive line and running backs.

“You look at Miami, and I would argue that nobody’s doing it at a higher level right now,” Viti said in April. “You look at a leader like coach (Mario) Cristobal, who’s coaching at his alma mater, and to me that was intriguing. And you come down here and you can feel it. You can feel that the frontier of college football lives here. And that’s hard not to say yes to, it’s hard not to be attracted to. So I would make the argument just the leaving part wasn’t so hard, but it was the excitement of what’s next and what you can accomplish with your service.”

The Hurricanes also added two blue-chip tight ends in their 2026 recruiting class.

Israel Briggs, a four-star prospect from California, was listed as the No. 21 tight end in the class. Briggs is listed at 6-4 and 205 pounds, which means he will likely be more of a pass-catcher than a blocker early in his career.

“Izzy was a great (addition),” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said.

The second tight end the Hurricanes signed was Illinois native Gavin Mueller, who had previously been committed to Colorado. Mueller, who is listed at 6-5 and 255 pounds, played multiple positions in high school but will play tight end at UM. Mueller, the No. 5 tight end in the class, accounted for 30 touchdowns in his senior year of high school.

Viti spoke highly of both Briggs and Mueller, saying it was surprising to see how mature they were as freshmen.

“It speaks to the maturity, and it speaks to the guys that we want to recruit here at Miami,” Viti said.

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