Team talent rankings prove that Miami has hit on recruits that 247Sports missed

Recruiting rankings aren't an exact science. There are people out there on all the networks (247Sports, Rivals/On3, ESPN, etc.) that will swear to you that they've never missed on an evaluation of a prospect, but they are lying and, truth be told, they aren't any smarter than anyone else. 

But I'll give 247Sports credit for some level of transparency, even if it's a reminder of how the network has missed on a few of the Miami Hurricanes' recruits over the past few years. Some are understandable, others are head scratching. And it led to the Hurricanes' 2026 roster being ranked 13th in the network's total team rankings. 

Now there are a few caveats to this list that help explain some things. The big one is that the ratings system that they are using is only what the player was ranked in high school, not their re-ranking as a transfer. That means that Darian Mensah's low three-star rating is the one they used instead of the Heisman contender that he currently is. Again, credit to them for some levels of transparency.

Although if it were me, I'd base these team rankings off the transfer ratings, since a good percentage of every team's roster is transfers. I mean, how many players that FSU recruited out of high school are still with that program? Probably about half?

Miami's ascension proves that 247Sports' ratings system doesn't take everything into account

I didn't go into 247Sports' ranking of every player on the current Miami roster. Some of the ranking misses from are things that happen. OJ Frederique has clearly outplayed his three-star ranking, but he was a player that got lost in the shuffle at St. Thomas Aquinas, where he was surrounded by over a dozen other top FBS prospects. 

Plus, Frederique originally committed to West Virginia before flipping to Miami, and if you don't think that doesn't skew the system a little bit, you're probably being naive. 

The biggest miss is probably Malachi Toney and that's less explainable. The preseason AP All-American and last year's ACC Rookie of the Year was a three-star prospect and rated as the 55th-best wide receiver in the 2025 class. Yes, Toney reclassified to 2025, and he probably would've been a four-star prospect in the 2026 class, but... c'mon man. There's no way to paint this as anything other than an awful miss.

And it wasn't like Toney didn't have a major pedigree in high school. He was called "Baby Jesus" back when he was like nine years old! And in his final game at American Heritage, he led the Patriots to a state championship playing quarterback and going 15-for-18. 

Those are just a couple of examples and there are others, like Zechariah Poyser, who was unranked coming out of high school, but was a four-star transfer when he came to Miami from Jacksonville State. But the greater point here might be how Mario Cristobal and the coaching staff have identified and developed players. Both coordinators, Shannon Dawson and Corey Hetherman, are elite at finding the right fits for the program. 

Cristobal can recruit. There's no question about that. Having five players with five-star rankings in the 2027 class is proof. But it's not all about the stars with Miami. There's a process that has set the Hurricanes up for success now and in the future, regardless of what the rankings say. 

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