An all-Floridian contest between the South Florida Bulls and Miami Hurricanes takes center stage on Saturday afternoon as Mario Cristobal’s fifth-ranked team tries to avoid a potential banana skin against one of the surprise programs of the 2025 college football season. Luckily for the home team, their roster contains two players considered among the best in the sport.
Rueben Bain Jr. Leads Miami Hurricanes NFL Draft Prospect vs. South Florida
Miami football is enjoying a comeback on the national stage. Under Cristobal, the Hurricanes have recruited at an elite level, mined the college football transfer portal as well as any, but struggled with consistency amid some questionable play calls. So far in 2025, they’ve yet to taste the negative side of his tenure, beating Notre Dame to open the season in a statement win.
At the heart of their early 2025 success is a roster stacked from top to bottom with talent. They added Carson Beck from the portal this offseason. Still, it is two standouts excelling in the trenches who are earning national attention for Miami ahead of the Hurricanes’ crucial college football Week 3 clash with a surprisingly good South Florida team.
Rueben Bain Jr. was unfit for most of the 2024 campaign, playing in nine games but looking a shadow of his freshman self. Early in this 2025 season, he’s looking back to his dominant best, particularly against a vaunted Notre Dame offensive line in Week 1. He was the 12th-ranked edge player by PFSN’s College EDGEi metric with a 78.6 score that is still top-25 for the season.
Ahead of his matchup against South Florida, Bain is being touted as one of the top players in college football and the 2026 NFL Draft class. PFSN analyst James Fragoza slotted him into the first round of his latest 3-Round 2026 NFL Mock Draft. This latest crystal ball look into the future pairs the Miami pass rusher with the Tennessee Titans as the fourth overall pick.
“The Tennessee Titans have longed for a true elite pass rusher, and with Harold Landry III gone, they don’t even have a good one,” Fragoza says. “They rectified the issue by taking Rueben Bain Jr. with the No. 4 pick. RBJ is a powerful pocket collapser with the size and leverage (6’3″, 275 pounds) to blow tackles into the QB’s lap.”
Bain isn’t the only Hurricane earmarked for future professional greatness. Just one pick later, offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa lands with the New York Giants. The Miami standout has been consistent as a protector for Beck this fall, logging 76.2 (Bethune-Cookman) and 75.6 (Notre Dame) grades in his first two games of the season.
Fragoza believes that the two Miami juggernauts are helping each other to become the best versions of themselves.
“They say iron sharpens iron, and that is certainly the case for Bain and Miami OT Francis Mauigoa. The former five-star hit the ground running as a true freshman, earning the starting left tackle job and never looking back. He has the raw strength and athleticism every offensive line coach covets, and he can provide stability to a Giants o-line that’s in desperate need of it.”
While the 2026 NFL Draft is months away, the pair of Hurricanes attracting national attention speaks volumes about the start to the season Miami is enjoying. However, before they can focus on the future, they must avoid a banana skin against the Bulls.
