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With all of the discussion about the LSU vs. Clemson game on Monday and NFL playoff games playing every weekend, a story oozed under the door this week about a former quarterback with the University of Houston declaring that he was entering the NCAA’s so-called Transfer Portal.
D’Eriq King had a terrific junior season as the starting quarterback for the Houston Cougars back in 2018. He passed for nearly 3,000 yards and 36 touchdowns. He ran the ball for another 674 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Before the 2019 season began, King was considered a potential Heisman Trophy candidate for the University of Houston.
Then “things happened”.
Despite King’s impressive personal statistics in 2018, the University of Houston dismissed their head football coach, Major Applewhite, after just two seasons. UH went 8-5 in 2018 but lost their bowl game to Army by an embarrassing 70-14 score.
The Cougars’ big money boosters (see also “Tillman Fertitta”) put pressure on the school to dump Applewhite and hire a big name football coach to bring the school back into the national spotlight.
So, Coach Applewhite was fired.
In his place, the school hired West Virginia’s head football coach, Dana Holgorsen. According to sources, Holgorsen’s contract will pay him $20 million over five seasons. The departed Applewhite would have earned “only” $1.75 million this year had he been retained.
So, how well did this new coach perform in his first year at Houston?
How about 4-8?
What happened to the Houston Cougars football team?
D’Eriq King, the senior Heisman quarterback candidate, started the first four games for the Cougars this fall in 2019. The team went a disappointing 1-3, and King’s personal statistics were not impressive, either. He passed for less than 170 yards/game during that 1-3 start of the season.
King’s Heisman hopes were completely dashed by then, and now his NFL draft stock was probably dropping like a rock, too.
In one of the oddest mid-season moves I’ve ever seen, the University of Houston announced that King (along with one of the team’s best receivers) had elected to stop playing football after Game 4 of the 2019 season and was utilizing a one-time option to “redshirt” (which allows the player to practice with the team but save a year of eligibility for another season).
That meant that D’Eriq King would begin his one-season “do-over” in 2020 and be eligible to play college football as fifth year senior or graduate student.
This fall, both King and UH Coach Holgorsen steadfastly insisted that the senior quarterback was planning to return to the Cougars football team in 2020 to finish his college football career in Houston.
On September 24, D’Eriq King said: “I’m staying here. I’m here. If I wanted to leave Houston and go somewhere else, I could have. I think me being here is what I want to do and it’s the best opportunity for me. I don’t think anybody will reach out to me. Even if they do, they should know I’m staying here.”
There wasn’t very much information provided to the public this fall to suggest just WHY the apparently healthy starting quarterback was bailing out on his team just four games into his senior season.
Did he need more time to learn the new coach’s offensive schemes and system? Perhaps.
More likely, he probably saw his NFL draft stock falling fast with the team’s 1-3 start and was more interested in preserving his financial future in professional football.
Here’s another interesting thought. The new coach’s son, freshman Logan Holgorsen, plays quarterback, too!
Guess where he plays football? Yep. The University of Houston freshman started one game at quarterback and appeared in seven contests this year for the Cougars. He plans to return in 2020.
A news source reported that D’Eriq King graduated from the University of Houston’s College of Education in December, 2019.
Hmm.
On Monday of this week, D’Eriq King made an announcement: “I’ve entered the (transfer) portal. I think it’s best for me and my family!“
That announcement means that D’Eriq King is leaving the University of Houston and is permitted by the NCAA to be contacted by a number of major universities who may have the need for an experienced quarterback with one season of college eligibility remaining.
Media reports indicated that there will be plenty of possible suitors for King’s services in 2020.
But wait! Didn’t this young man tell us that he was coming back to play for the Cougars next season?
Yes, he did. Houston’s coach Holgorsen also told the media the same thing as recently as a week ago.
Who is lying here? Probably both.
In Coach Holgorsen’s case, he may now utilize the quarterback’s departure from Houston as an excuse for the school’s lousy record in 2019 and that he must now rebuild the program in 2020. The Coach’s “excuse train” will buy him more time as long as he can maintain a good relationship with the University’s big money donors.
In D’Eriq King’s case, he must explain to future college football suitors why he left the University of Houston program in mid-season. I doubt that it will hurt him in finding another school, but it could cause him a bigger problem when he wants to enter the NFL draft down the road.
Both the coach and his former quarterback have some explaining to do.
The honesty and credibility of both D’Eriq King and University of Houston head football coach Dana Holgorsen will likely be subject to much closer scrutiny as a result of these quite unusual circumstances going forward.
I give them “Two Pinocchios“.