Hurricanes position preview: Mark Fletcher Jr. highlights stellar running back corps
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Spring football is in the rearview mirror, and the Hurricanes’ season opener against Stanford is still 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 looked at star transfer Darian Mensah and the UM quarterbacks. Now we’ll look at Miami’s running backs.
Who left
No one.
Star running back Mark Fletcher Jr. was eligible for the NFL draft and may have dramatically improved his draft stock after a stellar playoff run, but he chose to return to UM for his senior year.
Among the underclassmen, 2025 standout freshman Girard Pringle Jr. briefly considered entering the transfer portal, but he opted to stay at Miami.
Who returns
Everyone.
“The running back room is obviously a huge strength, and we’re stacked in that room,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “… We’re going to be comfortable with the fourth or fifth guy probably playing in that room, which is a great thing.”
Fletcher leads the way again for the Hurricanes after the best season of his college career. He racked up 1,192 rushing yards in 14 games. It was the seventh-most rushing yards by a UM running back in a single season.
Fletcher was 18th in the nation in rushing yards, but his advanced metrics showed he was one of the nation’s best running backs. Pro Football Focus gave him the fifth-best running grade among running backs with 100 or more carries. He was tied for sixth nationally in runs of 10 yards or more, and he was 10th with 72 first-down runs.
In the playoffs, Fletcher excelled. Against Texas A&M, he rushed for a career-best 172 yards, and his 56-yard run set up Malachi Toney’s game-winning touchdown. He followed that up with 90 yards and a receiving touchdown in the Cotton Bowl against Ohio State and a 133-yard performance against Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl. In the title game, he rushed for 112 yards and two touchdowns. Each of Fletcher’s two scores cut the Hurricanes’ deficit to three points, keeping UM in the game.
Fletcher’s offseason workload was managed so he could recover from the long 2025 season, but he said he felt “ready to go” in the spring. He is poised to lead the group again and be a key leader on the 2026 squad.
Behind Fletcher are all the same running backs who contributed last year.
Marty Brown, a transfer from North Dakota State, served well as a bruising backup, finishing second on the team with 474 rushing yards. He had an 80.9 rushing grade, which was eighth among ACC running backs with 100 or more carries.
The 5-foot-11, 220-pound running back finished his first season at Miami with seven rushing touchdowns, and he provided key runs in the postseason. Brown is a redshirt junior.
Miami also brought back Pringle, who provided a spark for the Hurricanes late in the regular season. The former four-star prospect rushed for 375 yards and four touchdowns on 62 carries in his freshman season.
Pringle sparked UM’s offense against N.C. State, rushing for a career-best 112 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He added two more scores against Virginia Tech the following week.
Pringle had a 74.5 rushing grade in his freshman season.
The Hurricanes also return Jordan Lyle. The St. Thomas Aquinas alumnus had a strong freshman campaign in 2024, but he struggled with injuries in 2025 and did not play as much. He had 108 yards on 35 carries, averaging 3.1 yards per carry — less than half of what he averaged (7.4) in 2024.
If Lyle can return to his 2024 form this year, he could add a dynamic boost to the Hurricanes’ offense.
“He’s going to show you guys a lot this year,” Fletcher said in the spring. “I’m just very proud to be his teammate.”
South Broward alum Chris Wheatley-Humphrey, a redshirt sophomore, also returns after rushing for 108 yards on 22 carries in a reserve role last season.
Who arrived
The Hurricanes added one running back in the offseason: freshman Javian Mallory.
The star from West Boca Raton led the Bulls to the first two state championships in program history as a junior and senior, earning Sun Sentinel Palm Beach County large schools Player of the Year honors last year.
Mallory, who was rated a four-star prospect, impressed in spring camp and had a strong performance in UM’s open practice at the end of the spring practice slate.
“He’s just a very physical runner,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “You almost, I wouldn’t say underestimate it — you expect him to be really good; that’s why we recruited him — but when he actually takes people on, the collision and the force that he generates on contact and his contact balance, I think, is really impressive. Great young man, awesome young man, hard worker, runs with his pads down, understands football really well.”
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