American Stories – It Was a Day Fit for a King for Houston

TAMPA, Fla.– With the graduation of valuable NFL prospect Greg Ward Jr. last spring, University of Houston first-year coach Major Applewhite found himself with an something of a quarterback controversy on his hands.

The Cougars started the season with highly rated Texas A&M transfer Kyle Allen, then switched to senior Kyle Postma after three games in an effort to find the right man for the job. But consecutive second-half letdowns in a 45-17 loss at Tulsa and a 48-45 loss at home to Memphis left Applewhite searching for answers heading into a critical American Athletic Conference game against unbeaten USF last Saturday at Raymond James Stadium.

As it turns out, Applewhite, a former Texas star who had been Tom Herman’s offensive coordinator in his first two years at Houston, had a third option waiting in the wings.

Sophomore D’Eriq King, a versatile, impact player from Manvel, Texas, who signed with Houston after originally considering TCU, arrived on campus as a multiple-position prospect, splitting time between quarterback and wide receiver and returning kicks.

Herman had promised King that he would give him a shot at the starting job. But Herman left for Texas and King missed spring practice and the tail end of fall drills, as well as two games this season, with a knee injury. When he finally got healthy again, he found himself getting minutes at wide receiver because of his explosive speed.

When Applewhite was reviewing the tape of USF Friday night, he realized he needed something to counter the Bulls’ exciting quarterback Quinton Flowers, The American’s 2016 Offensive Player of the Year.

“(King) brings a dimension to the offense that Quinton Flowers does,” Applewhite said. “It’s hard to contain those type of guys. That’s how we won games here the past two years.

“We wanted to make them defend a guy who can run. I watched a lot of defensive tape on South Florida, on how people play Quinton Flowers. Friday night at the hotel, we decided we had to have somebody on the field they had to worry about and we said, ‘Let’s put (King) in for two, three, four series.’ If he takes off, fine. It didn’t happen right away. But we were facing a six-man box and he ripped off some big plays.”

This was King’s coming-out party and he looked a bit like a clone of Flowers. King started slowly, but led the Cougars to three second-half touchdowns. He completed 12 of 20 passes for 137 yards and one touchdown. He also accounted for 83 of Houston’s 255 yards rushing against a defense that had only given up an average of 94 yards a game, offsetting the fact that the electric Flowers threw for 325 yards and scored a pair of short TD runs.

After just two series in the damp, rainy weather, King got his chance to be a hero when Applewhite plugged him in for Postma,  then watched as King performed his magic in the late stretches the Cougars’ 28-24 victory over the 17th-ranked Bulls.

The win snapped the Bulls’ 12-game winning streak, which had been the longest in the country,  After Emilio Nadelman kicked a 30-yard field goal to break a 21-21 tie with 1:46 to play, King led the Cougars on a  nine-play, 49-yard game-winning drive.

He kept his team’s hopes alive at one point with a 30-yard completion to Courtney Lark — who jumped between two defenders to make the catch — on a fourth-and-24 situation from the Houston 37.

“Fourth and 24, there ain’t too many plays in the playbook,” Applewhite said.

“I didn’t know if our guy could throw a 26-yard out route so we said, ‘Let’s just throw it up and see if one of our guys can come up with it.’ Our guys are so competitive we felt if we give them a chance, one of them might come do it.”

King wasn’t done. Five plays later, he stunned the crowd when he rolled left for a sprint-out pass, then reversed field and took off for a 20-yard touchdown run with 11 seconds to play.

“For a brief moment, when (King) didn’t throw the ball, I was worried if he doesn’t make it, time might run out and we’re going to look like fools,” said Applewhite. “But he made a great move. I knew he had the first down and he could spike it to set up a field goal. But he kept going in a straight line to the end zone.”

“It wasn’t just me,” King said. “It was more the offensive line. They blocked real well and the receivers blocked on the perimeter so it wasn’t just me. It was a good feeling, though.”

Count on King’s role expanding in coming weeks. This is a quarterback’s league. Just look at the teams on top and the men running the offenses: Riley Ferguson of Memphis, McKenzie Milton of UCF, Flowers, Zach Abey of Navy and Ben Hicks of SMU.

The frantic finish in Tampa is typical of the league games in The American this and every season.

“This is a scary league,” Applewhite said. “Everybody can beat everybody. There are a lot of talented players in this league and there are a lot of great coaches in this league.”

Applewhite is one of five new coaches in The American. He has learned quickly that the more aggressive teams have the most success. The Cougars needed this win to keep their bowl chances alive and their H-Town pride intact.

“We’ve played some really, really good football, but we didn’t finish,” Applewhite said.  “We wanted to track (USF) out into the water, put them in a game they weren’t used to.”

“Everybody doubted us, and we just came and got it,” said Houston sophomore running back Mulbah Car, who came off the bench for an injured Duke Catalon and rushed for 137 yards and a touchdown. “There’s no stopping us. We just stop ourselves. We beat ourselves a lot but we all came together for this one.”

The Houston locker room was rocking after the game.

“The buy-in is always better in this league when you win,” Applewhite said. “This can’t be the highlight of our season. though. Oklahoma was the highlight last year and that was Week 1.”

Aside from helping Houston win against USF, King’s presence behind center already has the remaining coaches on the Cougars’ schedule headed back to the drawing board.

“I’m glad that they did it last week and not this week, because it caused South Florida some problems,” said ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery, whose Pirates visit Houston Saturday.

“That’s not what (USF) expected in their game plan,” said Montgomery. “They thought they were going to see (King) in speed sweep situation and maybe some wildcat, but all of the sudden they are playing zone lead-counter, they’re playing run-action pass, the boot. So we got a chance to see it early. I thought it was a great strategy and it worked out.”

As for Houston, Applewhite hopes that his new offensive wrinkle gives his squad the chance to make a late run at the West Division title.

“We need to keep pushing to get better. We don’t have the competitive experience we had last season and we sure as hell don’t have the competitive experience we had in 2015. So we needed to do everything we had to do to win this game.”