{"id":345561,"date":"2026-07-19T22:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/345561\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T22:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:48:24","slug":"these-5-miami-recruits-gave-the-fans-more-than-that-couldve-anticipated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/345561\/","title":{"rendered":"These 5 Miami recruits gave the fans more than that could’ve anticipated"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami Hurricanes have been recruiting at an incredibly high level since Mario Cristobal arrived in 2022, so the list of sleepers this decade isn’t as deep as it was during the Al Golden\/Mark Richt years of the 2010s.<\/p>\n

That being said, Manny Diaz stumbled into a few recruiting wins during his short tenure and Cristobal is always willing to turn over every rock available to find him a player. His eye, along with the trust he has in his staff’s ability to evaluate talent and develop players, means that the Hurricanes will always have a few players that prove to be better than their rating.<\/p>\n

RECRUITING WEEK STORIES:
Miami’s most notable recruiting misses still have fans wondering what might have been<\/a>
The 5 transfer portal additions that helped Miami reach championship contention<\/a>
\u200b5 times Mario Cristobal and Miami hit the jackpot with local recruiting<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the top five Miami recruits from this decade that far exceeding their rankings:<\/p>\n

The top guy on this list isn’t a Cristobal recruit, but rather a Diaz find, and Restrepo will go down as one of the great recruiting sleepers in recent college football history. Restrepo, a product of Deerfield Beach High School, was the 623rd-ranked player in the 2020 class (84th in the state of Florida) according to the 247Sports Composite. All he did was set Hurricane receiving records for catches (200) and yards (2,844). He had consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in 2023 and 2024, leading the ACC with 1,127 yards and 11 scores in his redshirt senior year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moten has been one of the unsung heroes of the Miami defense and his ability to occupy blockers from the interior was a big reason why Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor became NFL first-round draft picks in 2026. A local recruit out of Fort Lauderdale, Moten was the 80th-rated defensive lineman in the class of 2022, but worked his way into the All-ACC second team in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moten has been one of the unsung heroes of the Miami defense and his ability to occupy blockers from the interior was a big reason why Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor became NFL first-round draft picks in 2026. A local recruit out of Fort Lauderdale, Moten was the 80th-rated defensive lineman in the class of 2022, but worked his way into the All-ACC second team in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Damon Wilson and Ahmad Moten will make sure Miami’s defense puts college football on notice<\/a><\/p>\n

McCoy is the third member of the class of 2022 to make this list, which is a credit to those players that wanted to be on the ground floor when Cristobal took over the program. An in-state recruit from the Jacksonville\/St. Johns area, McCoy made 27 starts in 2024 and 2025, proving that the 735th-rated prospect in the nation (62nd offensive tackle) had far more to offer than anyone could have anticipated.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez had a little more respect than the rest of the players on this list. The 3-star prospect out of Columbus High was just outside the composite top-400 and was rated as the 26th best offensive tackle in the country. He was a starter\u00a0in 2024, but suffered a season-ending injury in the season opener against Florida. He returned in 2025 to be one of the key members of the Hurricanes offensive\u00a0front.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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