CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) \u2014 There’s a subplot to No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Notre Dame this weekend.<\/p>\n
It’s Malachi Toney vs. Leonard Moore.<\/p>\n
And that matchup might be just as noteworthy to college football fans as the Hurricanes and Fighting Irish squaring off with huge College Football Playoff implications.<\/p>\n
Toney is the star wide receiver and dazzling Heisman Trophy candidate for the top-ranked Hurricanes (8-0), the go-to guy for the nation’s best offense. Moore is the lockdown cornerback and quite possibly the top defensive player on a Fighting Irish (7-1) team that happens to have the top-ranked defense in the country. The teams meet Saturday night at Notre Dame Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you ask both kids, they\u2019re looking forward to playing against elite talent,\u201d Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. \u201cI think guys like that appreciate people that master their craft the way the other one does. I don’t know Leonard like I obviously know Mali, but there’s a very humble approach to this game. He’s an elite player but he also appreciates elite competitiveness. … You’re going to get people’s respect when you’re that level player.”<\/p>\n
The mutual admiration from both sides was evident this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s as good as there is out there,\u201d Dawson said of Moore.<\/p>\n
Added Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, when asked about Toney: \u201cHe’s one of one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toney’s college debut came last season against Notre Dame in a 27-24 Miami victory that ultimately decided which team got the last at-large spot in the CFP field three months later. Toney had six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown \u2014 the one that opened the scoring.<\/p>\n
Freeman didn’t know much about Toney going into that game, other than he was still just 17 and should have been going into his senior year of high school. Toney reclassified to enter college a year early.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you see him live, in person, and you go \u2018Oh my gosh, he is the real deal,\u2019” Freeman said. “And he wasn\u2019t known on a college level \u2014 but after that game he was. He\u2019s athletic, he\u2019s fast, he runs good routes, he is competitive. And as you\u2019ve watched him, he has even improved this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering this week, nobody in college football has more catches than Toney’s 182 since the start of last season. His next catch will give him outright possession of the No. 2 spot on Miami’s all-time list; he’s currently tied there with Mike Harvey, 18 catches behind school record-holder Xavier Restrepo’s 200.<\/p>\n
Toney isn’t making much of the potential 1-on-1 matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s an opportunity to get better,” he said Tuesday. \u201cThat’s what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toney wears jersey No. 1; Moore wears jersey No. 15. The real story is No. 1 vs. No. 4, but 1 vs. 15 carries plenty of weight.<\/p>\n
How much is Miami quarterback Darian Mensah looking forward to the matchup?<\/p>\n
\u201cMassively,” Mensah said. “It\u2019s a huge opportunity for 1 to go out and put on a show. I think he\u2019s done it all year. Obviously, 15 is a great player and he\u2019s going to win some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore was a unanimous All-American selection last season and has done nothing to suggest he won’t be one again in 2026. He has seven interceptions and 23 pass breakups in his career; on the surface, they might not seem like huge numbers, but they become exceptional when considering that teams rarely try to test him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is as gifted in his toolbox as I\u2019ve been around,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cHis toolbox is extremely large. He has a skill set to be able to play corner and play nickel, and I truly believe he could play safety. That\u2019s the type of player he is. Mentally he can handle it, and physically. And that\u2019s why he\u2019s considered \u2014 if not the top \u2014 one of the top players in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here. Visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) \u2014 There’s a subplot to No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Notre Dame this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25123,2205,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-446434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}