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Miami WR Malachi Toney shines is 28-22 win over rival Florida State.
Buffalo Bills fans will get to watch the son of a former player compete for a college football title this year.
Miami Hurricanes freshman receiver Malachi Toney had a monster game in the team’s 31-27 win over Ole Miss in Thursday’s College Football Playoff semifinal. He has had a monster season, earning some big honors along the way.
Toney is the son of Antonio Brown, a wide receiver and kick return specialist who played a season for the Bills in the early 2000s — before the Pittsburgh Steelers receiver with the same name would spur the Bills in a proposed trade.
Malachi Toney Powered Hurricanes Through to Title Game
Toney finished Thursday’s game with five receptions for 81 yards and a touchdown, adding two carries for 11 yards. He put the Hurricanes ahead 24-19 with a sensational touchdown, catching a middle screen and stumbling through the defense before turning on the jets and racing for a 35-yard score.
As Corey Long of Fansided’s Canes Nation added, Toney occupied the full attention of the Ole Miss defense at all times.
“When Toney wasn’t catching passes, he was occupying all the attention in the Ole Miss secondary, which allowed Keelan Marion to have one of his best games of the season with seven catches for 114 yards and a 52-yard touchdown,” Long wrote.
Toney is having a huge season as a true freshman, leading ESPN’s Billy Tucker to rank him as the nation’s No. 1 freshman player.
“Toney is young enough to still be a high school senior,” Tucker wrote. “Instead, after reclassifying into Miami’s freshman class, he has become one of the defining stars of Miami’s resurgence, including hauling in the Hurricanes’ game-winning touchdown against Texas A&M in the first round of the College Football Playoff. At 5-foot-11 and 188 pounds, Toney has vastly outperformed his three-star ranking out of high school, winning ACC Rookie of the Year honors.”
With Thursday’s win, the Hurricanes have advanced to the College Football Playoff title game and will face the winner of this week’s game between Oregon and Indiana.
Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal shared praise for his team, which entered CFP bracket as the No. 10 seed and has advanced to the title game with wins over Texas A&M, Ohio State, and Ole Miss.
“It almost seems like the tougher it gets, the better we play,” Cristobal said, via ESPN. “And it’s a testament to them, to their resilience and their will.”
Malachi Toney’s Dad Had One Season With the Bills
Toney’s father is the lesser-known of two Antonio Browns who played in the NFL. The more famous was an All-Pro with the Steelers who reportedly refused a trade that would have sent him to the Bills early in Josh Allen’s tenure with the team.
The Brown who played for the Bills was listed as a wide receiver, but played almost exclusively on special teams in 16 appearances during the 2003 season.
He had only one touch during the season, a 17-yard rush. Brown was the team’s primary return specialist, returning 25 punts for an average of just 4.4 yards per return. He also returned 48 kicks for 1,046 yards, an average of 21.8 yards per return.
Nathan Dougherty is a sports reporter covering the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins. Previously he wrote for the Rochester Business Journal and served as the assistant editor of athletic trade magazines Coaching Management, Athletic Management and Training & Conditioning. He is based out of Rochester, New York, and loves everything football. More about Nathan Dougherty
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