Vaughn drops suit as Miami files transfer waiver
Cam Vaughn withdrew his lawsuit against Miami after the school submitted the NCAA waiver that clears him for the transfer portal, closing out a messy two weeks since his August 17 dismissal.
Recent News
On August 17, Mario Cristobal dismissed transfer receiver Cam Vaughn from the program without naming a reason, telling reporters only that "you make moves that are strictly for the betterment of the team," according to The Miami Hurricane. Vaughn had arrived from West Virginia with real production — 35 catches for 541 yards last season — but had been arrested in Georgia for reckless driving in July, even as running back Jordan Lyle stayed on the roster after a similar charge, a contrast College Football Network flagged at the time.
Vaughn didn't go quietly. On August 25, his rep Blake Sercye told On3's Pete Nakos that Miami had "dismissed Cam and cancelled his scholarship with no written explanation, no identified rule violation, and no hearing," then "refused to submit the waiver request the NCAA requires" for him to enter the portal — the basis for a lawsuit Vaughn filed in Miami-Dade County. Three days later, both problems solved themselves: Miami submitted the legislative relief waiver on Vaughn's behalf, and his rep Will Turboff of APSports Agency confirmed to On3 that the suit had been dropped. Whatever happened behind closed doors in Coral Gables, Vaughn is now free to find a new team, and Miami is done talking about it.
Last season ended in Bloomington, 27-21, closing a run to the Playoff
Miami's most recent game on the field was a 27-21 road loss to Indiana on January 20, the finish to a season that carried the Hurricanes deep into the College Football Playoff. It came after Miami had beaten Pittsburgh 38-7, Texas A&M 10-3 and Ohio State 24-14, all on the road, and then survived Ole Miss 31-27 to reach that Indiana game. The Hoosiers were simply the last team standing in the way.
There's no shame in how that season closed, and Cristobal's team enters 2026 with almost nothing carried over from it in the record book — Miami opens this year at 0-0, same as everybody else. What the Indiana loss left behind is motivation more than scar tissue, and it's part of why the preseason buzz around this roster has been so loud.
Miami arrives at camp No. 7 nationally and the ACC's pick to win it
The ACC media panel put Miami on top of the preseason poll with 165 of 178 first-place votes, easily outdistancing SMU (6) and Clemson (7). It's only the second time in program history Miami has been picked to win the league — the first time, in 2006, the Canes finished fourth in the Coastal, a bit of history Brett McMurphy was quick to point out. The AP preseason poll has Miami at No. 7, its highest preseason ranking since 2004.
Some of that is Darian Mensah, the Duke transfer who led the Power 4 in passing yards last season and walked away with the ACC's Preseason Player of the Year award, taking 97 of the votes over SMU's Kevin Jennings and NC State's CJ Bailey, per Brett McMurphy. Cristobal has been careful not to get ahead of himself in camp, though — after Miami's second scrimmage, he described the group as making "progress" but still working through "physicality... pre-snap discipline, post-snap composure," per SI.com. Camp opened with Mensah entrenched as the starter and senior Mark Fletcher Jr., last season's leading ACC rusher, atop the backfield, according to 247Sports' projected depth chart.
Miami opens as a heavy favorite in a series that's never been played before
Miami and Stanford have never met on a football field, and it takes a coast-to-coast trip to change that — Friday night at Stanford, at Stanford Stadium, in what is the Hurricanes' opener and the Cardinal's second game of the season after a Week 0 trip against Hawaii. Stanford is under new management, with Tavita Pritchard taking over as head coach after Frank Reich's interim stint produced a 4-8 finish last season, and leaning on Michigan transfer Davis Warren to get a passing game going.
The number reflects the gap: Miami opened -24.5, with the total set at 48.5 — a relatively modest number for a spread that size, hinting at a game the Hurricanes are expected to control on the ground and the clock more than the scoreboard. It's the first real measuring stick of the Mensah era, on the road, against a team trying to find its footing under a first-year coach.