No Malachi Toney, Now What For No. 1 Miami?: Just a Minute

Malachi Toney is out for Notre Dame and likely for the rest of the regular season. What does it look like for Miami? What does it also look like for the offense? And how does this affect the Heisman race? My name is Justin Sano from Miami Hurricanes on SI. We're going to dive deep into what is actually happening with the Miami Hurricanes right now, seeing as they're the number one team in the country. And for good reason, they are the number one offense. And at times, the defense has shown championship-level instincts to where they are. All the caliber. Where the defense can win games. Go back and look at Clemson when the offense was struggling. And Miami's defense continually stopped Clemson when they were trying to make a play. In recent weeks after the bye week, it hasn't been that. But because of Malachi, Tony, and Darren Mensah, there hasn't really been an issue to really worry about on the offensive side of the ball. Now. There's no Malachi Tony, especially against Notre Dame. Granted, Miami was probably going to run the ball and likely will continue to run the ball down Notre Dame's throat when the matchup happens. It's going to be a legacy-type game for Gary Minson and Mark Fletcher Jr. and the rest of the offense and see what they can possibly do. If BYU can score on Notre Dame, Miami can also score on Notre Dame. If Navy can run the ball on Notre Dame, Miami can also run the ball on Notre Dame. So there's no big if, ands, wins, or busts or how much this is going to affect what the Miami Hurricanes can do on offense. But without Tony there, Darren Mensah has a new opportunity to spread the wealth. You'll see a lot more other receivers. Cooper Barquet will finally get a chance to. Be more explosive and show why Miami got him in that dual package deal with Nary Minson bringing him in for Duke. He's a 1,000-yard receiver last year. He was one of the best receivers in the country. He's one of the reasons that Duke won an ACC championship last year. Miami gets the chance to use that fully now, and that likely with him being the number one receiver. Daylon Upshaw also gets the same opportunity, probably likely move him into the slot, use him a bit more here and there. Same thing with Vajrabius Jacobs. South Carolina transfer, a massive deep ball threat that Miami has been using in recent weeks. The same with Samarian Ringo, who's probably going to probably take a couple more opportunities out in special teams to try and run a ball back here and there. He's another deep ball threat, another. Big-time option for the Hurricanes. Also, don't forget about Vance Spafford. There's a lot of great talent on this Miami Hurricanes secondary, not secondary, but the wide receiver unit, where it's a lot of talent, but what Darian mentioned, get them the ball. Also, the very big wild card is Elijah Laughlin, who started to really come along, as most people have likely seen and wanted to see coming out of this freshman year when he was playing with Cam Ward. So, with that, in the immediate future, Miami's offense is going to be fine. How they continue to play without it? It's the biggest question. Now, you're going to really sit here and think, okay, now the bigger picture is playoff implications. Miami beats Notre Dame. Went out, you have Duke, Virginia Tech, and then you have Boston College, and likely face Wake Forest again in the ACC Championship game. Without Malachi Toney, you can likely win all of those games. You will get the number one seed. You will have a first-round buy. The college football playoffs start on... December 16th, that is going to give the timetable for Malachi Tony to return in terms of, if we want to use Brock Bowers, the 26 days that it took for him to come back. Right there until December 18th, if I'm not mistaken. You get a bye, you get an extra week with more rest for Malachi Tony, get him re-acclimated back onto the offense, and then you take on whoever is there for the Hurricanes. That's looking very far ahead. If you know Mario Cristobal, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0. That's the only thing that's going to matter to him. With a possible loss to Notre Dame, how far does Miami likely drop? Notre Dame was shockingly ranked number 11 in the country, signifying that if they lose this game to Miami, they're not going to make the college football playoff. But if they win, how far does Miami drop, and how far do they drop because they don't have Malachi Toney? And the implication of are they going to get Malachi Toney back is going to be the lingering thing that sits underneath them, depending on how far they drop. If they win out in an ACC championship game, it doesn't really matter at that point. They're probably still... Maybe get a bye. Maybe. Who knows how the rest of this college football season is going to be. A lot of weird things have happened. But those major implications sitting underneath with not having Malachi Tony is going to be a major factor, especially in the committee room, where us people on the outside looking have no idea what's going on inside of there. Alabama was ranked number five. Tennessee is ranked number 13, Oregon is ranked 23. Who knows what's happening inside of that room? Also, Wake Forest is ranked 16. Nobody knows what's going on inside of that room, but we continue to figure out what is and what's not working. So in the immediate future, Miami Hurricanes are going to be fine. But the bigger issue comes into the playoff implications if they don't beat Notre Dame. They're going to have extra juice now that they don't have Malachi Toney. Same with Notre Dame, which also makes this more implications of the game of the year. Notre Dame loses, they're out of the playoffs, so they have that extra boost of incentive to win. But now the entire Hurricane team is going to play for Malachi Toney, who is likely, was likely going to be the Heisman Trophy winner and a Boletnikoff Award winner as well. Now that award is likely going to be to Darian Mensah, or depending on how this game goes, is going to be a duel between Mensah and C.J. Carr. Between the two of them, likely one of those is going to be your Heisman Trophy winner, and if it's Darian Mensah, That only boosts what Malachi Tony can do and likely will do if and when he returns.