College football officially begins this month.
Now that it's August, there are just weeks to go until Week Zero arrives on Aug. 29, and since the season is quickly approaching, we're rolling out our preseason top 25.
After revealing our teams in the back half of our top 25, we continue our previews of the top 12 teams in the country with a team looking to get back to the national championship game.
Previously: Teams Nos. 13-25, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 11 Alabama, No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 8 Texas Tech
No. 7 Miami
2025 record: 13-3
Odds to win national championship: 11-1
Odds to make College Football Playoff: -300
2025 in less than 100 words
We could simply focus on the drama that surrounded Miami's playoff hopes at the end of the season. The Hurricanes missed out on the ACC title game thanks to two conference losses. However, Miami jumped ahead of Notre Dame — a team it beat in Week 1 — in the final CFP rankings to get the last at-large spot in the field.
From there, Miami beat Texas A&M on the road, took down Ohio State as a nine-point underdog in the Cotton Bowl, and then beat Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl to play for the national title. However, Miami's magical run fell short against Indiana, as the Hoosiers held on for a 27-21 win.
The QB
Darian Mensah
There's a lot of pressure on Mensah after he spurned another year at Duke for a monster offer from the Hurricanes. After leading the Blue Devils to the ACC title, Mensah announced that he would be coming back for another season in Durham. But as Miami struck out on transfer portal quarterbacks, the school zeroed in on Mensah as Carson Beck's successor.
The push worked. But it took some maneuvering. Duke filed a suit against Mensah in an attempt to prevent him from leaving. Mensah was granted a restraining order to enter the transfer portal, and approximately a week after the suit was filed, Mensah reached a settlement with Duke that freed him to transfer to Miami.
OK, back to the actual football. Mensah enters the season as the co-No. 5 favorite for the Heisman Trophy with odds of 11-1 and is a potential first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. After a breakout season at Tulane in 2024, Mensah completed 67% of his passes for 3,973 yards and 34 TDs with just six interceptions across 14 games. Mensah had just one multi-interception game all season and threw for at least two touchdowns in all but two of Duke's games.
Beck played his way into the third round of the 2026 NFL Draft at Miami with a bounce-back season following his 2024 elbow injury. There's plenty of reason to believe that Mensah can be better than Beck was in 2025 and can show how Miami spent its NIL money wisely at quarterback once again.
Non-quarterback to watch
WR Malachi Toney
Toney was the most electric freshman in the country in 2025. What will he do for an encore in 2026?
Toney had 109 catches for 1,211 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2025 after making an immediate impact against Notre Dame in that Week 1 win. He also rushed 23 times for 125 yards and four scores as Miami was unafraid to involve him in the run game.
While Toney will immediately be Mensah's top target, he should also benefit from another Duke transfer. Former Blue Devils WR Cooper Barkate joined the Hurricanes in the offseason too. Barkate had 72 catches for 1,106 yards and seven touchdowns last season. With Barkate opposite him and some growth from sophomore Joshua Moore after he had 17 catches for 210 yards as a freshman, defenses won't get to focus solely on Toney to disrupt Miami's pass game.
That's a big reason why Toney is one of just two non-quarterbacks with Heisman odds better than 100-1. The other player? Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith.
Eric Edholm's 2027 NFL Draft prospect to watch
EDGE Damon Wilson II
Some scouts might favor one of the Canes' dynamic DTs, such as Ahmad Moten Sr. or Justin Scott, but we'll take a leap of faith on Wilson becoming the top guy. The Mizzou transfer (via Georgia) was a terror off the edge last season for the Tigers, and he's expected to help fill the Canes' void on the edge with 2026 first-rounders Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor off to the NFL. Wilson still needs to close better on some plays, but he's a fiery rusher with strong hands and good countermoves. This season he'll be tutored by Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, now a Canes DL coach.
College fantasy football player to watch
RB Mark Fletcher
Fletcher became a star during the College Football Playoff. His big run tilted the Hurricanes' win over Texas A&M as he rushed 17 times for 172 yards. Against Ohio State, Fletcher had 90 yards on 19 carries, but added two catches for 25 yards and a TD.
He broke the 100-yard mark in each of Miami's final two playoff games and scored two touchdowns in the loss to Indiana.
Yet Fletcher is also just the No. 19 running back in Yahoo's fantasy rankings. He suffered a foot injury in Miami's loss to SMU and missed two games before returning against Virginia Tech later in November. He rushed for just 49 yards on 16 carries over Miami's final two games of the regular season. The nearly month-long break between the regular season and playoff clearly helped him get healthy.
But Fletcher also had some games that wouldn't have helped win a fantasy matchup during the regular season before the injury, either. In the two games before Fletcher erupted for 106 yards and three touchdowns in a blowout of Stanford, he ran 20 times for 58 yards and a TD.
Fletcher could be the perfect example of a back who is much better for his team in real life than he is in fantasy football.
Biggest game
Nov. 7 at Notre Dame
It wouldn't be surprising at all if both teams entered this Week 11 matchup at 10-0. Before playing Notre Dame, Miami's biggest game could be a trip to Clemson on Oct. 3. The winner could have an inside track to a first-round bye. Or, like last year, the winner could also get into the College Football Playoff at the other's expense. You don't have to remind Notre Dame about that.
It's also the last road game of the season for the Hurricanes. Miami's schedule is front-loaded with three ACC road games in the first five weeks of the season. After Notre Dame, Miami plays three straight conference games at home to end 2026 ahead of a potential ACC title game.
Why Miami is at No. 7
Did you know that Miami's offense took a significant statistical step back in 2025 despite reaching the national championship game? With Heisman winner Cam Ward at QB in 2024, Miami averaged 43.9 points per game and 7.6 yards per play. In 2025, the Hurricanes scored 31 points per game and averaged 6.1 yards a play. And in turn, the offense averaged nearly 130 yards fewer per game.
We don't expect the 2026 Miami offense to reach the heights the 2024 iteration did, but it could occupy a middle ground between 2025 and 2024 that’d put it among the elite units in college football. How far Miami goes again in the College Football Playoff will be about how the Miami defense can sustain the gains it made last season.
After being a sieve in 2024, Miami allowed just 14.8 points per game last season. A dominant defensive front led by first-round picks Bain and Mesidor had 50 sacks and the Hurricanes finished the season plus-10 in turnover margin.
Wilson is being asked to immediately fill one of the edge rushing voids that Bain and Mesidor left behind. Can Marquise Lightfoot and Armondo Blount Jr. also take a big leap?
The middle of the defensive line is stout with Moten and Scott, and LB Mohamed Toure got another year of eligibility. The secondary should be even better despite the loss of nickel Keionte Scott.
If the defensive line can be 85% of how ferocious it was in 2025, Miami will be more than capable of making another playoff run.