National Signing Day has come and gone and while the 2025 class is not finished since there is a late signing period in February as well, most of the action happened last week.
Rivals is breaking down each Top 25 recruiting class and we continue here with No. 13 Miami.
MORE HURRICANES: Miami's 2025 recruiting class
MORE TEAM SPOTLIGHTS: No. 1 Oregon | No. 2 Texas | No. 3 Georgia | No. 4 Ohio State | No. 5 Alabama | No. 6 LSU | No. 7 Michigan | No. 8 Auburn | No. 9 Texas A&M | No. 10 Tennessee | No. 11 Florida | No. 12 Notre Dame
NATIONAL SIGNING DAY: Grading the ACC | Grading the Big 12 | Grading the Big Ten | Grading the SEC | Gorney Awards | Winners and Losers | Who will be the team recruiting champ? | Who's left for the 2025 class? | Auburn beats Bama in-state | Ranking the top Group of Five signees | LSU's Kelly vents about NIL world | Live Blog | Announcement Guide
TRANSFER PORTAL OPENS MONDAY: Offensive transfers available | Defensive transfers available
WHAT WENT RIGHT ...
The Miami class is a balanced group with priority hits throughout the trenches, particularly along the offensive line, as many would come to expect under Mario Cristobal. During the season, the program hit its stride in landing key targets and building out the wide receiver position with a pair of likely instant-impact types in the big and physical Joshua Moore and the crafty slot in Malachi Toney.
But perhaps the two best wins for the Canes in the cycle came from the staff's early evaluations of quarterback Luke Nickel and running back Girard Pringle, the two longest-tenured commitments to sign with the program who Miami prioritized before many others in the Power Four eventually did.
WHAT WENT WRONG ...
Perhaps we have become spoiled by Miami's effectiveness down the stretch of a cycle, but the Hurricanes had a disappointing close to this class. While the program held on to Moore and won out for fast-rising linebacker Kellen Wiley, Miami lost its top-ranked pledge, five-star Hylton Stubbs, to Florida just days before National Signing Day.
High-floor linebacker Gavin Nix bolted for Oregon the next day and high-ceiling defensive back Timothy Merritt did the same for Tennessee in viral fashion.
Those losses, plus missing out on longtime priorities and top in-state recruits DJ Pickett (LSU), Jarquez Carter (Ohio State) and TJ Alford (Ohio State), pushed the Hurricanes out of the top 10 for the first time in three cycles.
PARTING PREDICTION
Prediction: This offensive line group will have multiple All-ACC selections down the line.
Miami has recruited very well under Cristobal so the no-brainer impact freshman recruits seem fewer and further in between. But the two we'll call this shot on also work on the interior in SJ Alofaituli and Max Buchanan, so we see them carving out a path to the field in much shorter order than some of their peers.
