‘Extremely steady’ Xavier Restrepo chasing Miami Hurricanes legends in UM record book
When Xavier Restrepo’s Miami Hurricanes career wraps up after this season, his name will be up there with some of the school’s all-time great wide receivers.
And at some point down the road, Restrepo will take the time to look back and see the mark he has made on the Hurricanes.
That day isn’t coming just yet, though.
“There is definitely a lot more to do,” Restrepo said Tuesday.
After catches seven passes for 112 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s 41-17 win over the Florida Gators on Saturday, Restrepo is up to 138 catches and 1,829 receiving yards in his Hurricanes career.
The 138 catches are the seventh most in program history, 45 shy of breaking Mike Harley’s school record of 182 receptions.
The 1,829 receiving yards? That’s 12th in Hurricanes history. He’s 3 yards from surpassing Andre Johnson — who was just inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — on the list and needs just 171 more yards to become the 10th Hurricanes player with 2,000 career receiving yards and 719 yards to break Santana Moss’ school record of 2,547.
Restrepo, lauded by his coaches and teammates for his selfless attitude, said the potential of having his name in the Hurricanes record books is “everything you could dream of as a kid” and a “great, great milestone for my career.”
But that’s not the narrative he wants to discuss right now, not when there’s a full season still ahead of him.
“That all comes with the hard work and with the winning, too,” Restrepo said, “so I’m not getting focused on that. The only thing that matters is this team.”
Added offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson: “That dude has shown up every Saturday that I’ve been here. He shows up every day at practice. He does the same thing, and he makes plays. Players respect players, and that dude makes plays, and he makes plays in crucial situations. He makes plays when you need him. He’s just there. I can’t say enough about him and his mentality, but he is a guy that’s been extremely steady since I’ve been here.”
The Hurricanes’ win against the Gators on Saturday was just the latest example. It was Restrepo’s seventh career 100-yard performance at UM, and it came with a slew of highlights.
Restrepo’s first catch on Miami’s opening drive saw him leap backwards to catch a cross-body throw from quarterback Cam Ward up the middle of the field for a 13-yard gain. Six plays later, the Hurricanes scored their first touchdown of the season on a 9-yard touchdown pass from Ward to Cam McCormick.
“I feel like I’m expected to do that, make catches like that,” Restrepo said. “I just tell Cam, ‘give me a chance and I’ll take care of the rest.’ He already has enough on his plate, and so do all the receivers and O-line and stuff like that. A receiver’s job is when the ball comes, it’s yours. I feel like that’s just a part of my job.”
In the second quarter, Restrepo scored his first touchdown of the season when he split a pair of Florida defensive backs on a crossing route and caught a pass from Ward in stride.
“That concept that we run is gonna be hard to defend because of how me and X see space,” Ward said of the touchdown pass to Restrepo. “I can drive it on him. I can throw him back cross field. I can throw it the true corner route. So that concept is a win-win situation for us.”
And then on the opening drive of the third quarter, Restrepo showed off his elusiveness. He took a short pass from Ward, spun his way past three Florida defenders and darted down the left sideline for a 40-yard gain that helped set up rushing touchdown by Mark Fletcher Jr.
“I study a lot of film. I kind of have an itch of what the defense is [doing], and I have played a lot of football. A lot of people run the same stuff — different looks, obviously, but, there’s only a certain amount of defenses that are made up around the world and football. Just studying personnel, motions, how they react, I feel like I know what coverage they’re in every single play.”
Restrepo getting to this point came after three years of truly having to work himself into the rotation to begin his Hurricanes career. He barely played in pandemic-impacted 2020 season, logging just one catch for 12 yards in seven games.
The two years after that, he combined for 613 yards and four touchdowns over 19 games, including just two starts.
And then came his breakout junior season in 2023 that put him on the map. He set a Miami single-season record with 85 catches and recorded 1,092 yards and six touchdowns. He was just the sixth 1,000 yard receiving season in UM history.
“He was always really, really good and right now, he’s really got to a different level as a leader, as a human being, as a teammate,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “He’s doing things in practice that are just completely unselfish. Go out of your way to help someone else be better, to impact someone in a positive way. With all those incredible catches and routes and moves that he made on Saturday, one of his best plays was where we had that speed play to [tight end Elijah] Arroyo … He ran out there and threw his body around to create an extra 10, 12 yards for his teammate. I cannot say enough great things about X.”
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