It’s been a rough first five weeks on the field for the Miami Hurricanes from a health perspective.

Despite starting 5-0 and 3-0 in ACC play and looking like one of the best teams in college football, Miami has suffered some significant losses due to injury. RB2 CharMar “Marty” Brown suffered a season-ending lower body injury. Both starting cornerbacks have been out for weeks. WR3 Joshua Moore suffered a season ending injury. A number of key players, including Mark Fletcher, Jr. and Ahmad Moten, Sr. have been dinged up and missed at least a game.

So, how much did the bye week help the Hurricanes get right on the field? Quite a bit it seems, according to Mario Cristobal on his weekly radio hit on “The Joe Rose Show” on 104.3 am on Monday morning.

Per Cristobal, Miami has two crucial defensive starters “all the way back”.

Hurricanes defensive starters Marquise Lightfoot and Xavier Lucas are ‘all the way back’ per Mario Cristobal, among others

“It (bye week) paid off,” Cristobal said. “Ezekiel Marcelin, all the way back. Lightfoot is all the way back. Lucas is all the way back. Damari Brown, back. And then the guys that were a little bit dinged up, they feel and look like they’re one-hundred percent because they had great days of practice.

“Obviously the one, Max Buchanan, is the one that we’re going to be out on. Hopefully he’ll join us later in the year. But aside from that, you know about the ones earlier in the season. I don’t have to rehash those. You know what, Joe? We went hard. We were smart with certain guys. We feel we developed three or four players at other positions that can help us win.”

Buchahan’s absence was the major question mark after he posted a picture on Twitter (X) of him in a hospital bed the week after the Hurricanes’ 41-13 win over Clemson. The fact he’s in play to return this season is a win in that regard.

Obviously getting Lightfoot, one of the Canes’ most disruptive defensive linemen back, plus starting corner Lucas and reserve linebacker Marcelin, will give an already dominating defense that much more juice.

It’s some welcome news that Hurricanes fans needed, and we’ll see if the injury bug will be a little more kind over the second half of the season.