Two Hurricanes out for season after Wake Forest win. Another out ‘a few weeks.’ Lyle back

The No. 6 Miami Hurricanes sustained multiple major injuries in their 33-20 win over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Friday night.

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The prognosis wasn’t great overall.

Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said during his Monday morning radio hit on WQAM’s The Joe Rose Show that running back CharMar “Marty” Brown and wide receiver Josh Moore are both out for the season, while linebacker Ezekiel Marcelin will be out “for a few weeks.”

“We got beat up pretty good,” Cristobal said.

Brown went down following a 32-yard run midway through the second quarter with a right knee injury. A cart came down the length of the field for Brown, who was helped off the sideline and put no weight on his right leg. He eventually did get taken to the locker room on a cart.

Brown ran for 474 yards and seven touchdowns last season. He had 97 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries this season at the time of the injury Friday.

Moore, who Cristobal said sustained an upper-body injury, had seven catches for 107 yards and two touchdowns through three games while working himself into the top of UM’s receiver rotation along with Malachi Toney, Cooper Barkate and Daylyn Upshaw.

And Marcellin, who had worked his way into the linebacker rotation early in his sophomore year, was tied for third on the team with nine tackles through three games.

“It’s a shame because he was playing high-level football and was now sharing reps with the ones and was going to play even a more significant role,” Cristobal said of the linebacker.

On the positive side: Cristobal said he is optimistic about both running back Mark Fletcher Jr. and Toney after they were banged up against Wake Forest.

Fletcher, who had a team-leading 85 rushing yards and a touchdown on 16 carries against Wake Forest, was taken to the locker room late in the game with what ESPN reported as an upper-body injury on its game broadcast.

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Toney, who caught a team-high 12 passes for 114 yards on Friday and leads UM with 28 catches, 444 receiving yards and five receiving touchdowns, was also banged up with an undisclosed injury and limited in the second half.

Cristobal called them both day-to-day.

Meanwhile, Cristobal said junior running back Jordan Lyle is back after sitting out the first three games while dealing with the legal process following an August arrest stemming from charges for aggressively fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer and reckless driving in mid-July.

The second-degree felony Lyle was originally charged with by the Sunrise Police Department for aggressively fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer, a second-degree felony and the more severe of his two charges, was dropped earlier this month.

Lyle was with the team in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the Wake Forest game, but did not play despite dressing and going through pregame warmups.

Lyle’s return will bolster the Hurricanes’ running back depth following Brown’s injury. Miami’s main running backs are now Fletcher, Lyle, sophomore Girard Pringle Jr. and freshman Javian Mallory.

“It has nothing to do with us being short,” Cristobal said. “It’s the fact that he did serve the consequences that come with the issue. He has been practicing with the team, and certainly he’s back and activated, and whatnot. But unrelated to that, when guys do go down, it’s not just a matter of a guy inheriting that opportunity. Guys still have to earn it.”

Miami (3-0) hosts Central Michigan (2-1) on Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium (6:30 p.m., the CW).

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This story was originally published September 21, 2026 at 6:33 AM.