Houston QB announces transfer to Hurricanes
Highly coveted Houston quarterback D’Eriq King has decided to spend his fifth and final season of college eligibility with the Miami Hurricanes.
King announced his decision Monday evening with a tweet after multiple reports said he was UM bound on Sunday. As a graduate transfer, King is immediately eligible to play in the 2020 season.
Since entering the NCAA transfer portal seven days earlier, King had also been linked to Arkansas, LSU, Oregon and Maryland. He spent the past weekend visiting Miami.
In 2018 at Houston, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound signal caller accounted for 50 total touchdowns (36 passing, 14 rushing), completing 63.5% of passes, throwing for 2,982 yards and rushing for 674 more. After playing four games last season, in which King completed 52.7 percent of passes for 663 yards, six touchdowns and two interceptions while rushing for 312 yards and six more touchdowns, he shut himself down to remain eligible for a redshirt senior season.
“Story is still being written,” King tweeted, with a picture of him in a white Miami uniform and helmet that was photoshopped onto him. “LETS GO! #TheU”
King’s decision comes in time for him to enroll at Miami for the spring semester before Tuesday’s deadline, according UM’s academic calendar posted by the school’s office of the registrar. Enrolling for the semester allows King to participate in spring football practices.
King immediately becomes the favorite to start at quarterback for the Hurricanes in new coordinator Rhett Lashlee’s offense. He is now one of six quarterbacks on scholarship on the Miami roster, and a flurry of transfers could be expected from the more veteran signal callers of the group.
Jarren Williams started 10 games last season and would be a redshirt sophomore in the upcoming fall. N’Kosi Perry, a rising redshirt junior, started the other three games last season and got six starts as a redshirt freshman in 2018. Tate Martell would also be a redshirt junior after he barely saw any playing time with Miami since transferring in from Ohio State last offseason.
Peyton Matocha would be a redshirt freshman next season, and Tyler Van Dyke is the four-star true freshman quarterback in UM’s 2020 recruiting class that is one of 13 early enrollees already on campus for the Hurricanes.
The move for King comes as Miami is switching to a more up-tempo, spread-like offense that Lashlee will bring with him from Southern Methodist. Last year at SMU, Lashlee led an offense that ranked No. 7 in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in scoring (41.8 points per game), No. 9 in total offense (489.8 yards per game). The Mustangs were ranked No. 3 nationally in plays per game, averaging 80.9.
King’s 50 touchdowns in 2018 broke an American Athletic Conference (AAC) record for touchdowns responsible for in a season. He comes to UM with an active FBS-record streak of 15 consecutive games with both a passing and rushing touchdown, established in the final game he played at Houston against Tulane in which he surpassed Tim Tebow’s previous mark of 14 last September.
The Hurricanes have now found potential fixes at two positions of need, adding new grad transfers at quarterback and kicker after FIU’s Jose Borregales transferred to UM last week.