CORAL GABLES — The Miami Hurricanes lost a significant contributor to their offense on Tuesday as running back Henry Parrish Jr. will enter the transfer portal, UM coach Mario Cristobal said.
“Henry will not be with the program anymore,” Cristobal said. “He’ll go into the portal. Look, we wish him the best. It’s best for him and it’s best for the University of Miami for him to move on. Thankful for his contribution here and wish him the very, very best.”
Parrish, a Miami native, led the Hurricanes in rushing yards the last two seasons. Last year, Parrish had 625 rushing yards and six touchdowns on 100 carries.
In two years with the Hurricanes, Parrish had 1,242 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns.
Parrish, a Miami Columbus alum, arrived at UM before the 2022 season after transferring from Ole Miss.
Parrish’s departure leaves the Hurricanes shorthanded at running back, especially in the spring.
Rising sophomore Mark Fletcher Jr. is expected to take the reins at running back, but he is out for the spring after suffering an injury during Miami’s bowl game loss to Rutgers.
“He’s doing well,” Cristobal said. “He’s a big guy; every time they get an apparatus on him, they have to super size it to make sure he can get around OK. Mark’s itching, chomping at the bit to get out there again. We expect him back, I’d say, probably two months, two and a half months. We expect to be at full speed by early summer.”
Miami also returns Ajay Allen, but he is also out for the spring due to injury.
The Hurricanes have five scholarship running backs on the roster: Fletcher, Allen, TreVonte’ Citizen, Chris Johnson and Chris Wheatley-Humphrey. Miami also signed four-star St. Thomas Aquinas running back Jordan Lyle, who has not enrolled yet.
“TreVonte’, certainly, is a guy that’s getting better coming off a major injury,” Cristobal said. “Chris Johnson’s had a great spring. Ajay Allen is on the mend; he’ll be back. Chris Wheatley-Humphrey looks really good. We signed a guy who’s a top back in the country on paper but he’s a guy that was on our board as a top guy in the country, as well. He has run a system that is similar to ours. So we feel really good about the competitive nature of that room, the caliber of coaching that they’re getting and what we have heading into the season.”
The Hurricanes could also look for a new running back when the spring transfer window opens on April 16.
“In the portal, when that thing opens again, we’ll be focusing on everything,” Cristobal said. “We feel like we really, over the last two years, just enhanced our team, the caliber of player, the caliber of competitor and mentality of the guys that we’ve brought in. I think there’s going to be opportunities to bring in a good handful of guys and maybe more at different positions. So I think as you assess spring and go a little further into it, we’ll have a better idea of what we go after, but we’re very open-minded, and we’re going to be very aggressive.”
