You certainly can’t build a ‘super team’ made up of 2026 college football players without including some Miami Hurricanes.
Mario Cristobal’s team reached the National Championship game last season and features one of the deepest rosters in the nation.
Chris Hummer of CBS Sports put together an ‘ultimate college football roster’ by plucking top position groups from various squads. A specific unit from Miami made the cut, but not the one I would have expected.
Hummer chose Oregon’s quarterback room, led by Dante Moore and backup Dylan Raiola. At running back, he gave the nod to Kewan Lacy and the Ole Miss Rebels. At receiver, he chose Indiana’s group, featuring Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker. Lawson Luckie and the Georgia Bulldogs get the selection for tight end. At offensive tackle? The Texas Longhorns. For the interior offensive line, Hummer chose Ohio State. Alabama was his choice for safety, Notre Dame at cornerback, Tennessee for linebackers, and Texas Tech at defensive tackle.
That only leaves defensive ends, and that’s where Miami wins out for his top unit in the nation.
Hummer appreciates Miami adding experienced threat Damon Wilson II to an otherwise young, talented room.
Seeing Miami get the nod at edge rusher was a surprise to me, but a pleasant one. How many teams could lose their top two edge rushers to the first round of the NFL Draft and still field the best group of defensive ends the following year? Miami has the depth necessary to replace the production of Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor.
Wilson had 9 sacks and 54 pressures in the SEC last year with Mizzou. Marquise Lightfoot and Armondo Blount combined for 5 sacks in rotational roles. They were both top 40 recruits and five-star prospects in high school. Fellow former five-star, Hayden Lowe, could be one of the team’s top x-factors as he returns from a knee injury that cost him the entire season in 2025. The Hurricanes have additional depth in the form of Herbert Scroggins III and Booker Pickett Jr. This unit gets elite coaching from Pro Football Hall of Famer Jason Taylor.
But is edge rusher even Miami’s best position group?
I would argue that it isn’t.
The Phil Steele College Football Preview magazine ranks Miami’s combined defensive line (DE & DT) sixth in America. Meanwhile, he ranks Miami’s wide receivers third, the running backs fourth, and their defensive backs fifth.
If I was creating my own combined super team, the group I would feel strongest about pulling from Miami would be the wide receivers. As we’ve covered in this column, Miami is the only team in FBS football with TWO receivers who recorded over 1,000 yards last season. Malachi Toney is widely considered a top-two pass-catcher nationally. Cooper Barkate was another top-ten receiver last year with 1,106 yards. Indiana has a good receiver room, but I would argue that Miami’s looks even better on paper.
Running back is another spot where Miami should earn consideration for super team status. Even though headliner Mark Fletcher Jr. had fewer yards than Ole Miss’s Lacy, Miami has a six-headed backfield of Fletcher, CharMar Brown, Jordan Lyle, Girard Pringle Jr., Chris Wheatley-Humphrey, and Javian Mallory that could be seen as the envy of America from a depth standpoint.
If they prefer to default to the headline players instead of overall depth, Miami’s defensive tackle unit could make a claim here. Hummer did note that Miami and Oklahoma were strongly considered here, even though he gave his personal edge to Texas Tech. For the Hurricanes, Ahmad Moten Sr. is considered a future first-round draft pick. His younger linemate Justin Scott is a former five-star recruit who broke out in the second half of the 2025 season and into the playoffs.
I’d be thrilled to see the prediction of Miami’s defensive ends setting the tone for the entire country come true this season. We’ll see if some of these other Hurricanes units can join them at the top.
