Dazzling D’Eriq King leads Miami with fourth-quarter comeback to bust bye-week blues
Fast, furious and fabulous.
An amazing performance Friday night by quarterback D’Eriq King helped lead the No. 11 Miami Hurricanes to a 44-41 comeback victory over North Carolina State at Carter Finley-Stadium.
The fiery Canes, down 41-31 at the start of the fourth quarter, scored 13 consecutive points to finally bust the bye-week blues. For the first time since Sept. 23, 2017 and first time in the Manny Diaz era, the Canes have won a game coming off a bye week.
King completed 31 of 41 passes (75.6 percent) for 430 yards and five touchdowns, adding 105 rushing yards on 15 carries. According to @ESPNStatsInfo, King “became the first FBS player to throw for 400 yards and five touchdowns and also rush for 100 yards in a game since...King in 2018. This is the sixth time a QB has hit those numbers in a game in the last 10 seasons, and King is the only player to do it twice.’’
“Wow, what a game. What a great win,’’ UM coach Manny Diaz said. “What D’Eriq King did tonight was phenomenal ...Absolutely remarkable and was at his best when his best was needed. Credit to NC State. They gave us all that we could handle.’’
King is the only FBS player with five touchdown passes and no interceptions in a game with multiple schools over the last 25 seasons, according to ESPN. He also did it with Houston.
Harley is spectacular
Miami’s Mike Harley, who had a spectacular performance for the second consecutive game, caught the go-ahead 54-yard touchdown from King with 2:43 left. Harley finished with eight catches for 153 yards and two touchdowns. On the game-winner, Harley grabbed the catch, lost his balance and looked as if he’d tumble head over heels. But he ultimately kept his composure — and balance — and his speed put him out of reach of the defense and into the end zone.
Harley said his mind immediately went to strength and conditioning coach David Feeley, who constantly reminds him while he’s sprinting toward the end zone to “keep your knees up... Drive, drive, drive.’’
“I just drove through it and it felt like practice on Greentree [Field].’’
“Me being here for four years, man, it’s been a long journey, a long road,’’ said Harley, who cried in the post-game locker room. “The four years I’ve been here we’ve had some hard battles and we didn’t get victories. But this team is very special.’’
The drive also included a clutch 35-yard Harley reception from King on second-and-18 from the UM 8.
The Hurricanes, on a three-game winning streak, rose to 6-1 overall and 5-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Wolfpack fell to 4-3 overall and in the ACC.
Other pass-catchers shine
UM’s receiving corps had eight players catch passes, including six by Mark Pope for 97 yards and a touchdown, seven by Dee Wiggins for 77 yards and a touchdown, and six by tight end Will Mallory for 78 yards and a touchdown.
Total offense for the Canes: 620 yards.
“It was a hell of a football game,’’ Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said. “They just kept responding and made one more play than we did at the end. Had our chances, obviously, and didn’t make enough plays. You’ve got to give their quarterback credit. We wanted to force him to have to throw the football to beat us and he had struggled on his deep balls throughout the season.
“Obviously,’’ Doeren said with a chuckle, “he got better at it during their bye week because he was on the money tonight. You’ve got to give King credit. He played a hell of a football game.’’
The Hurricanes, whose defense was considerably porous for much of the first three quarters before heroically helping to save the game in the end, were flagged for a painful 101 yards on 12 penalties. The Canes also had 11 players unavailable for the game, many of them believed to have COVID-19 related issues.
UM trailed 24-21 at halftime and fought back to tie the game at 31-31 with five minutes left in the third quarter. But immediately after King’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Mark Pope tied it, NC State’s Zonovan Knight returned the kickoff 100 yards to go ahead 38-31.
Three field goals followed: a 53-yarder by NC State’s Christopher Dunn and subsequent 38- and 22-yard field goals by Miami’s Jose Borregales to cut the Wolfpack lead to 41-37.
Diaz opts to kick
The 22-yarder culminated a wild, eight-play, 60-yard drive in which running back Cam’Ron Harris’ 1-yard touchdown plunge was negated by a false start penalty on right tackle Jarrid Williams. As a result, with about six minutes left in the game, Diaz opted to kick the field goal instead of going for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 5. He put his faith in his defense, and the D came through by sacking quarterback Bailey Hockman and forcing the Wolfpack to punt.
“As a competitor, yeah, I wanted to stay on the field,’’ King said. “But it made sense to kick the field goal and honestly, I’m glad he did. They got the stop and we went down there and scored.’’
DJ Ivey career moment
After Harley’s game-winning catch, the Canes defense had its more-than-shining moment. On first-and-10 from the State 25, with 2:43 left and plenty of time for NC State to attempt its own comeback, cornerback DJ Ivey intercepted Hockman and returned it six yards to the State 26.
UM held tightly to the ball, with Harris rushing three times for a combined 16 yards, then letting the clock run out with team rushes the rest of the way.
“They had 41 [points], which is way too many, but seven of that [was] in the kicking game,’’ UM coach Manny Diaz said. “There’s a lot of disappointing things, but when we needed to make plays, the guys believed in each other they found a way to get it done. Credit to those guys for not panicking and playing their best when it was needed.
“...We knew there would be adversity in the second half, but we knew we’d win the game if we stuck together and that’s exactly what we did. We stuck together, we didn’t panic, we got some stops on defense and offensively we were just hard to stop all night.’’
Said defensive end Jaelan Phillips, who led the Canes with 10 tackles, a sack, 1 1/2 tackles for loss, a pass breakup and near interception: “Things happen when they’re supposed to. Ball doesn’t lie.’’
The first half was almost as crazy.
Four drives, four touchdowns
The first four drives ended with touchdowns — two by each team. At halftime, NC State was up 24-21, as quarterback Bailey Hockman was also on .
Hockman also had a strong performance, completing 19 of 28 for 248 yards and two touchdowns. He was sacked twice.
The Wolfpack received first, driving 89 yards in six plays that took only 2:10 off the clock and culminated with a double-pass screen from Hockman to slot receiver Thayer Thomas and back again to Hockman for the 31-yard score.
UM took over at its own 25 and could only get to the 34. But Diaz took a huge risk and told his Canes to go for it on fourth-and-1. And did they ever, as King kept the ball on the read option and sprinted 42 yards down the right sideline. Five plays later, King’s 3-yard play-action pass to Mallory made it 7-7.
NC State went right back up 14-7, slicing through the UM defense like it was butter. Hockman’s back-to-back 24-yard passes put the Wolfpack on the Canes 15. Two plays later, Hockman threw an 11-yard touchdown to Devin Carter.
Next: Miami’s turn. King hit Dee Wiggins in the left front of the end zone for a 39-yard beauty of a go route at 3:14 to tie it at 14.
Going up
The Canes made it 21-14 early in the second quarter on a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch by Harley, who cradled King’s 20-yard pass in his arms and had no choice but to run hard up a small flight of stairs beyond the end zone.
NC State narrowed the lead to 21-17 with a 42-yard field goal with 9:35 left in the half, aided by a questionable personal foul call on UM defensive end Quincy Roche.
After UM punted, the Pack drove 80 yards in seven plays, culminated by Hockman’s 9-yard touchdown pass to tight end Cary Angeline. The drive was buoyed by Ricky Person’s 40-yard rush and NC State went into the locker room up 24-21.
With four games left in the 2020 regular season, Miami has matched its 2019 win total. The Canes travel to Virginia Tech next weekend for a showdown with the always dangerous Hokies (3-2, 3-2), who host Liberty on Saturday.
ACC hopes on line
For now, the Canes can sit back and watch No. 1 Clemson (7-0, 6-0), UM’s only loss this season, face No. 4 Notre Dame (6-0, 5-0) Saturday night. A Notre Dame loss would put the Irish and Hurricanes in a second-place tie in the 15-team league, in which the Irish are football members only for this season. UM would then have to hope the Irish lose one more game and the Canes win out for the Canes to get a rematch with Clemson in the ACC title game Nov. 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Before Friday, UM had lost eight consecutive games following a bye week or heading into a bowl since Sept. 23, 2017. The losses came to Wisconsin twice, Boston College, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, FIU, Louisiana Tech and finally, Clemson this season before Friday’s victory.
This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 11:23 PM.
