Top returning players by PFF grade: No. 1 D'Eriq King
Top returning players by PFF grade: No. 5 Cam Harris
Top returning players by PFF grade: No. 4 Zion Nelson
Pro Football Focus grades every player on every play in every game.
It creates a great barometer for performance and a grade above 70.0 is considered very good.
There are five returning Miami players who crossed that threshold over the entire 2020 season.
The past four days we began counting them down with No. 5 Cam Harris, No. 4 Zion Nelson, No . 3 Nesta Silvera and No. 2 Mike Harley.
Today we continue our top 5 returning players countdown -with No. 1:
QB D'ERIQ KING
UM PRO FOOTBALL FOCUS RETURNING PLAYER RANKING: 1
PFF BY THE NUMBERS: 749 total reps, 90.6 overall grade. 88.2 PASS grade, 75.5 RUN grade
What couldn't D'Eriq King do last season?
Passing ability? Check.
Running threat? Check.
Leadership? Check.
He finished the season with 2,686 passing yards while completing 64.1 percent of his throws. King had 23 TD passes and ran in four more scores (with 538 rush yards), and he threw five interceptions.
His biggest issue was deep throw accuracy the first half of the year, but he got that down by the final games.
King was your do-everything guy that really got Rhett Lashlee’s offense flying high.
The torn ACL in the bowl game was especially a shame just because he’s never had two years under the same coordinator in college. You could imagine him making even bigger gains in his play with the off-season time working with his receivers and spending time in the weight room.
Going into this season, a lot will hinge on how he comes off the knee injury and how much he’s able to really do in terms of full workouts in fall drills.
Word is he'll play with a brace but is on schedule to be ready for Game 1. The more he can do and the earlier he can do it, of course, the better.
And a bit issue won't just be his physical progress next month, but also his mental game. Having the knee repaired and trusting it are two different things. He has to be ready to go 100 percent out of the gate with Alabama looming.
CaneSport’s Take
There obviously are some things to worry about here since Miami can’t compete with Alabama without King on top of his game. In the bigger picture, this will be his final year of college football and obviously the goal is to put up big numbers. He has come back fast, but we don’t know yet what reality really is because of all of the physical and mental challengers ahead.