Miami Hurricanes linebacker Mohamed Toure starts his eighth year of college football

As controversy about player eligibility embroils college football, LSU has decided not to play two former NFL players today. But another player whose eligibility demonstrates major changes in the NCAA was on the field for the Miami Hurricanes’ opener on Friday night.

Miami linebacker Mohamed Toure recorded five tackles in Friday night’s win over Stanford, which is noteworthy because this is Toure’s eighth season playing college football. Before transferring to Miami last year, Toure had been on the team at Rutgers for six years.

Toure announced in January that he would return to the Hurricanes for the 2026 season, and unlike the issue of former NFL players, there wasn’t even any controversy about it because the NCAA made clear that he’s eligible for an eighth season — something that once would have been unthinkable in college football. Here’s how every year of Toure’s college football career has unfolded:

In 2019, Toure enrolled at Rutgers and played two games as a freshman. At the time, the rules said that he could take that year as a redshirt and play four more years after that, so his eligibility would be used up after the 2023 season.

In 2020, Toure played nine games for Rutgers, but the NCAA decided not to count that season toward any player’s eligibility because of the impact that covid had on the 2020 season.

In 2021, Toure played 13 games for Rutgers. As far as the NCAA was concerned, this was the first year that counted toward his four years of eligibility.

In 2022, Toure missed the season with an injury. In the old days, the redshirt year he took in 2019 would have meant he couldn’t take another medical redshirt, but under the newer rules, the NCAA didn’t count 2022 toward his eligibility limit. So through four years at Rutgers, he had still used only one year of NCAA eligibility.

In 2023, Toure played 13 games for Rutgers. This previously would have been his final year of eligibility, but the NCAA now calls that only the second year that counted toward his eligibility.

In 2024, Toure again missed the season with an injury. The NCAA once again allowed that to be yet another medical redshirt year that didn’t count toward his eligibility, so after his sixth year in college football he had still only used two years of eligibility.

In 2025, Toure transferred after six years at Rutgers to Miami, where he was a team captain who helped the Hurricanes get to the College Football National Championship Game. That was his seventh year in college football and his third year of eligibility.

And now in 2026, Toure is one of the Hurricanes’ top players, in his eighth year of college football and his fourth and — we think — final year of NCAA eligibility.