Miami (OH) RedHawks 2026 Season Preview

Due for a Correction

Chuck Martin's 13th year in Oxford followed a familiar script that ran out of road in the MAC title game and a lopsided bowl loss to Fresno State. The deeper issue is that the 7-7 mark flattered this group against league opponents, where the yardage margin implied a far shakier team than the 6-2 conference record showed, and a plus turnover margin over 14 games is not a habit that repeats. With 32% of production back, Miami (OH) has the pieces to be competitive again, but banking on last year's close-game and turnover luck is how a program stalls out under a long-tenured staff instead of building on it.

McComb Inherits a Broken Offense

Miami's defense did its job in 2025, ranking 6th nationally in sacks and 25th in havoc rate while holding opponents to 335 yards a game, but the offense stalled behind it, finishing 109th in third-down rate and converting scoring chances at just 3.34 points a trip. That imbalance is why the Kansas transfer David McComb now runs the show at quarterback, tasked with fixing an attack that managed only 5.50 yards per play and a 39.2% success rate a year ago. If McComb can push the ball downfield better than last year's group, a defense this disruptive finally has enough support to turn close games into wins.

David McComb arrives from Kansas to take over a passing game that managed just 187 yards through the air and a 34.7% third-down rate a year ago, numbers that made Miami's offense unwatchable in crunch moments. He walks into the job with Dequan Finn's 1451 yards and Henry Hesson's snaps both gone, leaving only Thomas Gotkowski's modest 575-yard sample as in-house evidence of what the position can do. The RedHawks bet a three-star transfer fixes what two returning arms and a 106th-ranked success rate could not, and that bet is the whole story of this offense in 2026.

Jordan Brunson's 767 yards walk out the door, and Chuck Martin didn't wait around to replace them, going to the transfer portal for Rodney Nelson, whose 1,805 yards and 18 touchdowns at Monmouth dwarf anything this backfield produced in 2025. D'Shawntae Jones returns with 277 yards and 7 scores, so this shapes up as a two-man committee rather than a clean handoff, but Nelson's workload elsewhere suggests he's the guy Martin brought in to fix a ground game that ranked 78th in rushing yards per game. The bigger question is the offense around him, a unit that finished 106th in success rate and 107th in points per scoring opportunity, meaning even a much-improved run game may not translate to more points unless the line and passing game catch up.

Kam Perry (976 yards, 6 TD) and Cole Weaver (642 yards) are both gone, stripping away the only real production this passing game had in an offense that already ranked 106th in passing yards per game. Keith Reynolds is the closest thing to a proven option at 36 catches for 352 yards, and Braylon Isom's 3 touchdowns on just 10 grabs hint at role upside, but neither profiles as a true No. 1. Miami leaned on Ohio State transfer Damarion Witten and a wave of three-star freshmen like William Pressley and Justen Hodge to restock the room, betting that quantity and recruiting hits eventually outpace last year's shallow, unproductive depth chart.

Miami (OH) loses its only tight end with a real receiving résumé in Brian Shane (13 catches, 116 yards, 2 TDs), and what's left is a room with almost no catches between them. Mitch Bolden, who managed just 2 tackles as a blocker last year, is the only name with any stat line at all, while Chase Becker, Brayden Boeing, Noam Butbul, Eric Karner and Brody Kosin all arrive with clean slates. For an offense that already ranked 106th in passing yards per game and struggled to move the chains on third down, this is a group that will have to earn its role in-season rather than lean on 2025 tape.

Miami (OH) allowed 26 sacks and posted just a 39.2% success rate up front last season, numbers that trace straight to a passing game stuck at 187 yards per game. Most of the room returns, with juniors Brandon Lawhorn Moore and Andrew Lowry among the more experienced names back, while only Austin Uke, Marcus White and Drew Terrill are gone. Chuck Martin also added tackle Dominik Kosznicki and interior lineman Maximus Hauck as incoming high school recruits, plus Ohio State transfer Devontae Armstrong and tackles Zach Hultgren and Evan Malcore, depth that should let continuity, not an overhaul, drive whether the run game builds on last year's 151 rushing yards per game.

Nasir Washington's 3.5 sacks and 5.5 TFL are gone, but Miami doesn't need one disruptor to replace him with six bodies returning who all logged tackles for loss last season. Bai Jobe (3.5 sacks) and James Schott (2.5 sacks) anchor a group that helped produce 41 team sacks, 6th nationally, while Cincinnati transfer Mikah Coleman arrives with 3.5 TFL of his own to add juice off the edge. This is a rotation built on volume rather than a single name, and that depth should keep the pressure numbers near the top of the country again in 2026.

Miami loses the bulk of its production at linebacker, with Corban Hondru, Jackson Kuwatch and Adam Trick combined accounting for the majority of last year's tackling and pass-rush juice off a unit that finished 6th nationally in sacks. Malcolm McCain, who racked up 66 tackles and 6.5 TFL, becomes the clear centerpiece, flanked by Brock Uihlein and a group of role players in Brach Rice, Grant Lyons and Eli Coppess who all logged limited but real snaps. South Alabama transfer Blayne Myrick arrives with 84 tackles and 6 TFL of proven production, and he should slide in immediately alongside McCain to keep this defense's havoc rate near the level that made it 25th nationally a year ago.

Eli Blakey's 118 tackles, Silas Walters' 71 and Koy Beasley's 40 walk out the door, gutting a unit that helped Miami rank 36th in yards allowed per game, and none of the returning group comes close to replacing that production on paper, with Kaleb Martin's 31 tackles the high mark back in the fold. The answer comes via the portal: Dillon Tatum arrives from Northwestern with 16 tackles of starting experience and Ben Minich joins from Notre Dame, giving Chuck Martin two ready-made safeties to plug into a defense that already generated 41 sacks. Adrian Walker Jr. and Toney Coleman Jr. round out a secondary that leans on newcomers to hold the line against last year's steep production loss.

Dom Dzioban is gone after hitting 18 of 21 field goals and 86 points, and nobody left on campus has kicked a college game to prove they can match it. Carter Holden and Kellan McLaughlin return with no real body of work beyond McLaughlin's 0 of 0 mark, while Loveland product Brady Stidham arrives as a three-star addition with no stats on file either, so this job gets settled on campus rather than by track record. Pierse Stainton at least offers stability, coming back off 63 punts at a 42.2 average, which matters more with the placekicking picture this unsettled.

Overhaul at the skill spots

Miami (OH) is replacing its entire skill-position core, and the answer is a wave of transfers rather than internal successors. Dequan Finn, Kam Perry, Jordan Brunson and Cole Weaver combined to account for the bulk of last year's production, and the plan now runs through Kansas transfer David McComb at quarterback and Monmouth transfer Rodney Nelson, who piled up 1805 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns, at running back. Defensively, Jackson Kuwatch and Eli Blakey leave real production behind, but South Alabama's Blayne Myrick (84 tackles, 6 TFL) and Northwestern safety Dillon Tatum arrive to soften the blow, making this a roster defined far more by who came through the portal than who developed in-house.

Rodney Nelson's transfer bet

Miami is handing the ball to David McComb, a Kansas transfer with no prior stats, which makes Rodney Nelson the actual engine of this offense. Nelson piled up 1805 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns at Monmouth, and if he reproduces even a fraction of that against MAC fronts, he takes the pressure off an unproven quarterback and keeps D'Shawntae Jones as a change-of-pace weapon rather than the primary load. If Nelson's production does not translate up a level, Chuck Martin's offense leans entirely on a first-year starter with zero game tape.

Perfect at Home, Shaky After Losses

Chuck Martin's crew was money as a home favorite last year, covering all four such spots, and turned into a genuine conference-play machine at 6-2 against the number in MAC games. But bettors chasing a letdown response got burned repeatedly, with Miami covering just 2-4 the week after a defeat, and the road-underdog spot was nearly as brutal at 1-2. The 2026 line reads clear: back this team when the market respects them at home or in conference, and stay away chasing a bounce-back after a loss.