'He just took over': How Mark Fletcher became the engine powering Miami's run

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson's game plan for Miami's first College Football Playoff appearance was to throw the kitchen sink at Texas A&M, to run every twist on every play he could imagine until something broke. He would leave no stone unturned.

By the fourth quarter, however, the score was tied at 3, and both offenses had traded blows in a battle of attrition. All the gadget plays and misdirection had amounted to nothing. A swirling wind at Kyle Field had stunted the passing attack and played havoc with the kicking game, as Miami missed three field goal attempts. The last hope, Dawson figured, was to do the thing he had been criticized for most this season.

He would run the ball -- power run, A-gap, right down the Aggies' throats until Miami was in the end zone.

Dawson found his tailback on the sideline before Miami's final drive, and he issued an edict to Mark Fletcher Jr.

"We're riding you down the field," Dawson said.

Fletcher grinned -- that smile that has become so familiar to everyone around Miami for the past three years. Fletcher is always happy, always an optimist, but this was different. It wasn't optimism. It was certainty.

Fletcher found his O-line and explained the game plan for that final drive.

"I know what I'm going to do," he told them. "Now you just get 'em out of the way, and I'll handle the rest."

Fletcher took a handoff on the first play of the drive, surged up the middle, dashed toward the sideline, fought off a pair of defenders and marched 56 yards downfield before he was dragged to the ground.

He followed with runs of 2, 12, 3 and 2 yards to set Miami up for what became the decisive touchdown in the program's biggest win in more than 20 years.

No one on the team was surprised.

"To see him have that success," quarterback Carson Beck said, "I'm super happy for him. But it was very expected."

Fletcher finished the game, a 10-3 win, with 172 yards rushing for an offense that managed just 278 yards total. On Dec. 31, Miami will face Ohio State in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

In the chaos of the postgame locker room celebration, Fletcher went live on Instagram, holding up a T-shirt with his father's face emblazoned on it, and the words that have come to define both his journey and Miami's inspiration this season: "Long live Big Mark."

It has been less than 14 months since Fletcher's father, Big Mark, died in his sleep at 53. In the time since, Fletcher has reevaluated his outlook, refocused on his goals and relived so many memories of the man who helped make him into the glue that binds the Hurricanes together. He's not playing for his dad exactly, Fletcher said, but it's in these moments when he still feels closest to Big Mark.

So, yes, Fletcher knew what he was going to do on that final drive. He would do what his father always told him to do. He would put one foot in front of the other and fight for every inch.

"What he means to this team, it was a rough year for him, and he never flinched," Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. "He's the heart and soul of our football team. Everything he does is dedicated to his teammates getting better and his team winning. And he was the difference in this game. He just took over."

LINDA FLETCHER WELCOMED as many fans to the Miami-Texas A&M game as she could, whether they were decked out in orange or maroon. She perched outside the stadium armed with signs -- "Freight Train Fletcher" and "Long Live Big Mark" -- and said hello to anyone she saw pass.

"I gave out 10,000 hugs," she said. "And I love it."

To understand Mark Fletcher's outlook on the world, it helps to know who raised him.

"My other children always say, 'Oh, she finally had her mini me,'" Linda said. "Mark's ways are a lot like mine."

There's a group text for all the "Mamma Canes" to trade travel tips and hotel advice and just to talk football, but even amid the fanatical group of mothers, Linda stands out. A few are baffled by Linda's willingness to engage the enemy at games but, as she sees it, everyone could use a little more love in their lives.

"I don't know what my purpose is," Linda said, "but they feel good, I feel good, and people are always talking about how much they love Mark."

Linda hates flying, so she drives to each game, including the 1,300-mile journey from Fort Lauderdale to College Station for Miami's playoff game against the Aggies. She has two older kids who live in Jacksonville, so she tries to stop there for the night, then ventures on in daylong chunks -- to Syracuse and Dallas and Berkeley, California -- stopping wherever she sees fit to experience a little of what the road has to offer.

Linda has tried to convince a few of the other Miami moms to join her on a road trip, but so far, she has had no takers. Occasionally someone will offer to buy her a plane ticket, and she laughs.

"I say they can buy me a tank of gas," Linda said.

The dream, Linda said, is to buy an RV, so she can cruise America's highways in style.

"Once Linda Fletcher pulls out in her big RV, that's how you know we've made it," she said. "I'm going to get me a big RV. I look forward to that. It's on my bucket list."

And yet, Linda is in no hurry to make the dream a reality. Mark Fletcher could move on to the NFL when Miami's season draws to a close, but he has talked with his mom about the decision, and he wants to stick around. He loves Miami, and the program has been the salve that has made the past year bearable.

Mark Fletcher Sr. was "an inside dad," Linda said. He never missed a practice. When the locker room opened to family, he was there. He was his son's closest ally, but he was also a rock for Fletcher's teammates.

"Him being around the building with the team, he was always cheering somebody up, always willing to talk to somebody," Miami defensive end Rueben Bain said. "Of course, Mark lost him, but I feel like so many of us on the team lost him. Even myself. It's crazy what the Fletcher family has done for this university."

Fletcher said his dad served as a father figure for a number of his teammates who had grown up without one.

Linda said Big Mark was just a fun, outgoing person. He was someone people could trust.

And then, on Oct. 24, 2024, he was gone.

"We were broken inside," Linda said. "My baby was broken. That's the worst thing that ever could've happened, and I was nervous for him because I know how close him and his dad are."

A few hours after Fletcher was marched into Cristobal's office, where he was told his father had died, he was at practice. A week later, Miami was set to play rival Florida State. Fletcher insisted on suiting up for the game. The family rescheduled the funeral to accommodate it.

"We were crying our eyes out," Linda said. "But funeral time, you know, it's business. We had to go lay dad to rest. We're not crying now."

Then a procession of five buses arrived at the church. Every member of the Miami football program had come to say goodbye to Big Mark.

"We couldn't keep ourselves together," Linda said. "We thought it would be Mario and his family. The whole team? Think about that. For us. A little Black family from Fort Lauderdale. That was over the top."

In the year since, Linda has been constantly amazed at how much football has been her center amid the grief.

She shows up for every practice now, except the ones at the tail end of the week before a road game. Then, she's in her car, following some new stretch of highway. She gets to the games, and she holds up her signs, and she hugs a thousand strangers because, for her and for her son, the world is still full of love, even if one of their most important lights has gone out.

"It's not always sad because we're doing work that Big Mark Fletcher would so approve of," Linda said. "It's a bittersweet thing."

During warmups on the field this past Saturday, before Miami played its biggest game in decades, Bain found Fletcher, and he hung an arm around his friend.

Bain wanted to soak in the moment with one of the teammates who had helped deliver Miami to this place -- two of Cristobal's early recruits who have helped engineer this new era.

Bain looked at his friend, patted his back and smiled.

"Long live Big Mark," he said.

BEFORE FLETCHER'S DOMINANT final drive delivered Miami to the doorstep of the lone touchdown of the game, the Canes had another drive brewing. Fletcher had opened it with a 16-yard run, and, on the next play, Beck connected with star freshman Malachi Toney on a 12-yard completion past midfield. But as Toney fought for extra yardage, an A&M defender jarred the ball loose, and the Aggies recovered at their own 47.

Toney was heartbroken. He jogged to the sideline, took a seat on the bench and slumped over, believing he had cost his team the game.

"The second I saw him drop down," Fletcher said, "I rushed over to him."

In the weeks after Big Mark died, Fletcher spent his share of time slumped in his seat, too.

He had never wavered from football, but the problem was that Fletcher kept thinking about what his dad would've wanted. He thought about all the ways Big Mark had pushed him, motivated him, supported him. He was at Miami because of his dad, and now he felt he had to honor his father's legacy. It was a weight, a feeling like his every step came in the shadow cast by the man who had set him on this path.

"I'd get so sad," Fletcher said. "I'd cry before games."

That sadness felt wrong though, Linda said. She admits, she still has her moments of overwhelming grief, but that's not how the Fletcher family had ever lived. It's in their DNA to find the light, even amid the darkest clouds. They are happy people, Linda said. Big Mark was happy.

"Big Mark helped build my son up to what he is today," Linda said. "It gets sad that he's not here in the flesh to follow this dream with us, but in the spiritual realm, we say he's here with us. We just have to enjoy him in a different form. And that's where our faith kicks in."

So Linda and Mark and the rest of their family devised a slogan to help them honor Big Mark without remaining tethered to their grief: Keep going.

When his father was alive, Fletcher texted him daily. Usually his phone would chime a few minutes later with a note from Big Mark, offering inspiration. Nothing was owed to Fletcher, Big Mark would say. You have to earn it, then take it. Big Mark always understood how to push his son forward.

Looking back now, Linda sees it as part of Big Mark's legacy. In his absence, he taught his family -- and, really, an entire team -- to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep living life to the fullest. Their story is not over yet.

Fletcher's mission, Linda said, has shifted from being stressful to being purposeful.

"I think about him every single day, every second, honestly," Fletcher said. "That's what drives me. But I had to switch my mindset in how I'd think about him. That's not how he'd want me to play this beautiful game of football. I just said, I miss my dad but he'd want me to go out there and have fun."

So when Fletcher found his teammate slumped on the sideline after the worst moment of his young career, he knew exactly the right words.

Keep going.

"God just gave you some adversity right now," Fletcher told Toney. "That's all it is. Now let's go win this game."

Miami's defense stuffed Texas A&M on three straight plays after Toney's fumble. The Aggies punted it back to the Canes, Fletcher ran 75 yards on five plays, setting up Miami with a third-and-5 at the A&M 11.

On the next play, Beck tossed to Toney streaking across the backfield. Toney bolted around the edge, out to the sideline, past frustrated A&M defenders and into the end zone.

Keep going, and good things will happen.