He was ‘match that set everything on fire.’ UM’s King still felt this spring as he rehabs
Mike Harley, like every other senior with uncertain NFL Draft prospects at the end of last season, agonized about what his future might hold. The wide receiver had a breakout 2020 season for the Miami Hurricanes, going from draft afterthought to a potential pro, even if he was perhaps going to have to leave behind some unfinished business.
When D’Eriq King decided to come back for one more year, everything changed.
“D’Eriq King,” the receiver said Monday, “was the match that set everything on fire for everyone to come back.”
Star safety Bubba Bolden decided to come back after a breakout redshirt junior season. Harley, defensive lineman Jon Ford, linebacker Zach McCloud and safety Amari Carter decided to come back for an extra year, too. Even offensive lineman Jarrid Williams decided to return to Miami for his seventh season of college football.
Now the Hurricanes are looking at one of the oldest rosters in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Where would they be without King?
“When they came back, it was a great impact to the team. Those guys are great leaders,” striker Gilbert Frierson said Thursday. “All those guys are great leaders, and great guys in the program that’s always working and always getting guys better. They’re testing everyone around them.
“You’ve just got to take full advantage of getting those older guys, getting around them, seeing what they like to do, how they operate.”
It’s impossible to prove a prove a counterfactual, but the return of King clearly helped convince players on the borderline of turning pro or coming back to school to return to Miami. Even as King sits out spring practices to rehabilitate his torn right anterior cruciate ligament, the quarterback’s presence looms over all the Hurricanes’ preparations for 2021.
Miami is only replacing three starters from its 2020 roster — star defensive ends Jaelan Phillips and Quincy Roche and All-American kicker Jose Borregales — and King set the tone for it.
When he joined the Hurricanes last year as a transfer from the Houston Cougars, King immediately helped reshape the program in his image. Coach Manny Diaz repeatedly praised King’s leadership, even when the COVID-19 pandemic forced players to disperse across the country for virtual meetings and workouts. The redshirt senior set a tone of professionalism and confidence, and Miami jumped from No. 98 in total offense in 2019 all the way up to No. 32 last season.
The Hurricanes climbed as high as No. 7 — their best ranking since 2018, when they last reached the ACC Championship Game and a New Year’s Six bowl — before ending the regular season with an ugly loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels, costing them a spot in the 2021 Orange Bowl.
Less than two weeks after the loss, King announced he would use the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA because of the coronavirus and return for one more season. A few days later, he tore his ACL in the Hurricanes’ loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the 2021 Cheez-It Bowl.
His teammates didn’t care. One by one, they started to say they would return.
“It’s just finish something great,” Harley said.
It isn’t strictly about the idea of playing with King again and potentially contending for an ACC or even national title. Miami’s King-fueled breakthrough in 2020 provided proof of how important veteran leadership can be. King was the leader for the whole offense and the entire team. Harley, who’s very close with King, wants to be the sort of veteran leader he never had.
“We have some guys that come in this program and leave early,” the wide receiver said, “and then you leave some of the younger guys out to dry and they don’t even know how to compete the right way or work the right way.”
Carter echoed his fellow senior.
“Mike just touched on it: A lot of guys didn’t have that because of people leaving early,” the defensive back said Monday. “When you look at the good teams, they have experience around the ball, on the field.”
Last Friday, Diaz said King is “smashing every benchmark” as he recovers from his injury. He’s a fixture in the weight room and throughout the football facilities in Coral Gables, and, apparently, on Greentree Practice Fields, too.
With King sitting out, underclassmen Tyler Van Dyke, Jake Garcia and Peyton Matocha are getting the bulk of snaps, but King is also typically around, Frierson said. Whenever a quarterback comes off the field, he can go check in with King and pick the brain of one of the most accomplished players in the country.
“It’s a great blessing to have him in that room,” Frierson said. “Those guys — those younger guys — see his work ethic and how he is.”
