Fake run is the real thing for King: QB’s twists, turns have been crucial
UM quarterback D’Eriq King knows his running ability is crucial as the No. 11 Hurricanes continue to prepare for the Virginia Cavaliers at Hard Rock Stadium.
University of Miami quarterback D’Eriq King, master of the fake run, is not going to stop anytime soon.
He might not be amass
ing several hundred rushing yards this season, but with his proven ability to turn any play into a twisting, turning, sprinting display of beauty, King’s penchant for sucking in the defense with a quick hitch of his body has opened the field for some explosive plays to make the difference between No. 11 UM (4-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) winning and losing.
“It’s very important,” King told reporters Wednesday. “Any time we play anybody, everybody is worried about me running so much. So any time I take a couple steps or I run a quarterback power, the linebackers and everybody are getting sucked up, and that allows people to get behind them and we wind up with touchdowns. Obviously I just gotta keep running the ball and [offensive coordinator Rhett] Lashlee has drawn up great plays on offense.
“It’s pretty much like play action, but just no back. Like a quarterback
power and just give a low hat so guys can’t really see me. They think I’m running so they stumble and try to make a play. I just throw right behind them.”
King did it at least twice in last week’s victory against Pittsburgh, throwing for touchdowns to running back Cam’Ron Harris and tight end Will Mallory.
KING’S NUMBERS
After five games, King has rushed 53 times for a net gain of 273 yards and two touchdowns, a 5.2yards-per-carry average. He has completed 91 of 153 passing attempts (59.5 percent) for 10 touchdowns, with four interceptions thrown the past two weeks — good for ninth in the ACC in yards-pergame (215.8).
He has had some balls batted down and tipped that turned into interceptions.
“I just gotta try to avoid them,” he said when asked how not to get into the same situation against Virginia (1-3, 1-3), which comes to Hard Rock Stadium for an 8 p.m. Saturday kickoff (ACC Network) and has lengthy defenders. “I just gotta try to throw it around them. I can’t try to throw through people. I can’t let the ball get tipped.”
UM guard DJ Scaife said Wednesday that the offensive line has improved, but that the “offense helps us out a lot when we go fastpaced and D’Eriq helps us, bailed us out a couple times, too.”
Miami has allowed 12 sacks this season, nine of them the past two weeks and eight of those nine against King (after allowing three the first three games). Backup N’Kosi Perry was sacked once at Clemson. Keep in mind that the Canes allowed 51 total last season, nearly the worst showing in the nation.
“I don’t want to see my quarterback on the ground at all, and I don’t want to point fingers at nobody else,” said Scaife. “You have to go back and see how we can fix that all around.”
JARRID WILLIAMS PRACTICING
UM coach Manny Diaz said right tackle Jarrid Williams, who missed last week’s game with a “hand issue,” has been practicing and hopefully will be ready to go against the Cavaliers. But Diaz said earlier this week that he thought the O-line, which also gave up 15 tackles for loss against Pitt, “played well.”
“It sounds like it doesn’t make any sense,” Diaz told WQAM. “One of the sacks was on his [running] back and some of the sacks were us holding onto the ball too long and turning what could have been either a scramble or throwing opportunity into sacks. We know Pitt has got a fantastic front. They’re relentless. But I thought D.J. Scaife played one of his best games of season. I thought Zion Nelson popping over to right tackle did a really nice job. It is hard going against that defense. It’s not just their front— they put all their linebackers and safeties right there behind them and they are so aggressive.
“How about the fourth quarter? We hold the ball for all but a minute and a half of the fourth quarter. We went on a 71⁄ 2- minute drive when we kicked the field goal. We got the ball back with [31⁄ minutes left]
2 and they never saw it again. That’s really offensive line time.”
Said Scaife: “It was very valuable because we could control the game.”
Diaz said, “It’s never going to be something you can put on the wall at the Louvre when you’re playing Pitt, but hey, if you’re an offensive lineman grinding that fourth quarter, that is a work of art for them.”
Diaz said tight end Brevin Jordan, who missed the game last week because of an apparent shoulder injury, “is still mostly limited” this week. “But I’m not ruling him out yet.”