{"id":678554,"date":"2026-01-15T06:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/678554\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T06:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:32:18","slug":"mark-fletcher-jr-s-mother-traveled-17000-miles-following-miami-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/678554\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Fletcher Jr.’s mother traveled 17,000 miles following Miami this season"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

As the final team to earn an at-large bid in this year\u2019s 12-team College Football Playoff field, No. 10 Miami<\/a> (13-2) was considered a longshot to win a single game, let alone make next Monday\u2019s national championship game against No. 1 Indiana<\/a> (15-0). Kickoff is set for 7:30 pm ET, Jan. 19 from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.<\/p>\n

A big reason for the Hurricanes\u2019 surprising title game run has been the play of workhorse junior running back Mark Fletcher Jr.<\/a>, who\u2019s 395 postseason rushing yards has paced Miami\u2019s grind-it-out offense to consecutive upsets over No. 7 Texas A&M<\/a>, No. 2 Ohio State<\/a> and No. 6 Ole Miss<\/a> in the first three rounds of this year\u2019s Playoffs. But for all the ground Fletcher has chewed up on the field, there\u2019s someone that\u2019s gone even farther just to see him play this season \u2014 his mother, Linda.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe gets her a little rental for that weekend, and she just (hits) the road,\u201d Fletcher told ESPN\u2019s Kirk Herbstreit and Joey Galloway on Monday\u2019s episode of their Nonstop podcast<\/a>, adding the longest trip his mother has made was a 6,200-mile roundtrip trek from their home in Fort Lauderdale to Cal<\/a> in 2024. \u201cI was telling her like, \u2018Mom, look, I know you want to come to my games, and I want you to come to my games and support me. But if you don\u2019t want to fly, it\u2019s OK. You can just watch it (on TV).\u2019 And she was like, \u2018Boy, I ain\u2019t hearing that. I\u2019ll see you there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Galloway then asked how much of a motivation it is to see his mother in the stands for all of his games, no matter the distance she had to drive. Whatever the motivation, Fletcher has carried Miami\u2019s ground game with a team-leading 1,080 rushing yards and 10 touchdwons on 199 carries this season.<\/p>\n

Mark Fletcher on his mother\u2019s travels to see him play: \u2018She\u2019s giving it her all, I\u2019ve got to give it my all too\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c(It\u2019s) extremely motivating, extremely motivating. This lady showed up (after she) drove all these hours. Yeah, she claims she loves it, but I know that\u2019s not an easy thing to do,\u201d Fletcher added. \u201cShe wants to be there for me and support me, man, I\u2019m about to run this ball so hard. I\u2019m about to block so hard. I\u2019m about to do everything I can. And not only, of course, because I want to win for my teammates, but my momma just came here and did all that, I\u2019ve got to give it my all. She\u2019s giving it her all, I\u2019ve got to give it my all too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher\u2019s mother has certainly put in significant time on the road during the postseason, driving more than 5,000 miles and a total of 140 hours round trip for Miami\u2019s three Playoff games to College Station, Arlington, Tex., and Glendale, Ariz. In all, Linda has driven approximately 17,650 miles round trip and spent more than 250 total hours traveling to her son\u2019s road games during the 2025 college football season.<\/p>\n

Given all that time driving, it\u2019s only fitting that Linda\u2019s next trip to see her son play in Monday\u2019s CFP National Championship game against Indiana in Miami Gardens is a short one. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good 15 miles, baby,\u201d Fletcher joked, \u201cshe can handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the final team to earn an at-large bid in this year\u2019s 12-team College Football Playoff field, No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,40602,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-678554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-mark-fletcher-23-american-heritage","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115897718743183196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}