Chuck Martin confirmed on Oct. 2 that David McComb's upper- and lower-body injuries will keep the redshirt freshman out for the rest of the 2026 season, closing a four-start run that produced 1,121 passing yards, seven touchdowns and one interception. The next afternoon at Yager Stadium, senior Caleb Heavner started in place of the injured McComb and completed 17 of 24 passes for 198 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions, adding 15 carries for 24 yards. Bowling Green, which had walked into Oxford 0-4, left with a 24-20 win and Miami's MAC opener.
That is the whole problem in one line. Heavner was accurate and careful; Miami still scored 20 points, and Kellan McLaughlin's four made field goals from 24, 41, 40 and 28 yards accounted for 12 of them. An offense that trades touchdowns for field goals loses one-score games, and Miami lost this one by four. Martin's read was split down the middle. "I thought he competed his tail off. I thought he made some plays, especially in the fourth quarter," he said of Heavner, before calling the loss itself "disappointing is an understatement. We gotta win."
How Miami got to its third quarterback
Back in August, Miami's quarterback room looked like a competition worth having, with returning Thomas Gotkowski, who had thrown for 575 yards with four touchdowns and one interception in five 2025 appearances, plus transfers McComb from Kansas and Heavner from Fort Hays State. Gotkowski, who had started the final three games of 2025 including the MAC Championship Game, went down with a non-contact injury in fall camp and was lost for the season, "Unfortunately Thomas went down with an injury ... It just stinks," Martin said. Which is how McComb became the Week 1 starter in the first place. Now McComb is gone too.
So the job belongs to Heavner, who started two seasons in college at Division II Fort Hays before transferring to Oxford roughly ten months ago. Behind him is true freshman Drew Bellisari. There is no fourth option, and no further competition to resolve.
What to watch at UMass
Miami plays at Massachusetts on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN+, and the simulations give the RedHawks a 56% chance. Watch the red zone. Heavner's debut suggested he can move the ball between the 20s without putting it in danger; what Miami has not shown since the quarterback change is a drive that ends in the end zone instead of McLaughlin's right foot. Two touchdowns instead of two field goals is the difference between this trip feeling like a correction and feeling like the second week of a slide.
The defense is the other thing worth your attention, because it keeps failing in exactly one way. Against Bowling Green, Miami held the Falcons to 62 rushing yards but allowed Jay Kastantin to throw for 305 yards and two scores, including a 64-yarder. Martin named it himself. "We can't give them big plays. They're a team that struggles to drive the ball, so you can't give them one-play touchdown drives." That is a fifth straight week of the same split, and it is happening to a unit that finished in the MAC's top three in each of Bill Brechin's first four seasons as coordinator and piled up 133 sacks and 83 takeaways from 2022 through 2025. The front is still doing its job. One blown coverage per Saturday is now the margin of these games.
The stakes, honestly
MAC coaches picked Miami second in the preseason poll, four points behind Western Michigan, with four of them choosing the RedHawks outright to win the league. At 2-3 and 0-1, that is already a different season. A win in Amherst puts Miami's chances of reaching the title game around 5%; a loss drops them to roughly 1%. Neither number is a reason to book Detroit. But 0-2 in the MAC with a backup quarterback ends the conversation in early October, and 1-1 keeps it alive into the Akron and Central Michigan stretch.
There is also a small score to settle on the other sideline. The last time these programs met, in September 2024, Miami kicker Dom Dzioban forced overtime with a 47-yard field goal on the final play of regulation and won it 23-20 with a 43-yarder in the extra period. Full probabilities and the week's other games are in the interactive guide, with the model explained in the methodology.
Nothing else on Saturday's board moves Miami's math. This one does.