If Haynes King has his sights set on the 2025 NFL draft, he’s not going to publicly admit that now.
“I’m just taking it one game at a time,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday at the ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I got two years to play, and we’ll see how it plays out. I’m just taking it one game at a time and trying to be the best this year.”
If King is, “the best,” this season — the best of his career, the best in the ACC, one of the best in the country — then there’s no doubt Georgia Tech’s star quarterback will have a chance to be part of next year’s draft class. The Texan is coming off a breakout season in which he threw for 2,842 yards and 27 touchdowns, ran for 737 yards and 10 scores and, perhaps more important, gave Tech stability at the QB position while leading the Yellow Jackets to seven wins.
Tech coach Brent Key shouted from the rooftops Monday that King was the best quarterback in the ACC, somewhat implying his prized transfer recruit in 2023 should be getting a little more attention than, say, Florida State’s D.J. Uiagalelei, Miami’s Cam Ward, Syracuse’s Kyle McCord or North Carolina State’s Grayson McCall.
“That kid’s special,” Key said of King. “You know how the season goes, there’s so many unknowns, ups and downs, we don’t know those things. But that kid right there? I’m getting in his foxhole.”
A 6-foot-3, 215-pound native of Longview, Texas, King came to Tech from Texas A&M in January 2023, won the starting quarterback position in August of that year and then led the Jackets back to bowl season for the first time since 2018. Highlights from his first 13 games in white and gold included 287 yards passing and four touchdowns against North Carolina and 150 yards rushing against Boston College.
After King and Tech beat Central Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl in December, King returned to Tech for spring practice and to finish his graduate degree from the Institute. That left him some free time, in a sense, this summer.
“I’d say I was interning under (Tech quarterbacks) coach (Chris) Weinke,” King grinned. “I’d help with camps, helped work 7-on-7s and stuff like that. I was always busy.”
Along with Weinke, King also continued to work with his longtime personal coach Jeff Christensen. The work with that duo continued because King knows despite all the gaudy numbers in ‘23, he has to get better in ‘24.
King’s completion percentage of 61.7 ranked 61st nationally and seventh among ACC quarterbacks. His 16 interceptions tied for the second-most among all FBS quarterbacks. Four of those picks came in a 42-21 loss at Clemson.
According to Pro Football Focus, King had two games in 2023 (at Miami and at Clemson) where his overall rating was worse than 54. Among quarterbacks with at least 400 dropbacks in 2023, King came in rated 18th overall and 32nd as a passer.
“Consistency with the feet,” King said on what he has been focused on the most in order to make himself improve. “If your lower half is consistent with how you place your feet, the angles with where they land, everything else is gonna take care of itself.”
Said Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner on Thursday: “We spent all spring, all summer long studying other really good offenses, other quarterbacks that I think that are similar — whether it’s NFL or college, we did a lot of that. Several different teams that we studied and how they were able to utilize their quarterbacks or utilize that guy’s skill set and, you know, cut out some things and maybe add some things right here.”
Of course, some of the aspects of King’s game that aren’t measurable is what gives the Jackets hope that 2024 could be something special.
Key detailed the final offensive drive of the Gasparilla Bowl in which King could have padded his passing stats, but instead demanded the Jackets continue to run the ball to, “destroy somebody’s will to play,” Key said.
Defensive lineman Zeek Biggers mentioned how many players, especially the younger ones on the roster, look up to King. Running back Jamal Haynes described how this offseason King has refused to let anyone inside the locker room slack.
“(King) has become way more of a vocal leader and not just leading by example but speaking up about it, holding others accountable for what they’re doing and how they’re doing it,” Haynes said. “Just an overall great person. Not just a great player, but a really good person at heart. I feel like (King) is a great leader on and off the field for Georgia Tech.”
King’s first test of 2024 will come Aug. 24 in Dublin against the mighty Seminoles of Florida State, a team that won the ACC last year and a program led by Mike Norvell. Norvell was the coach at Memphis in the summer of 2018 when he spotted King at a satellite camp in Texas. He offered the former four-star recruit a scholarship that night.
Now Norvell has to formulate a plan to contain who has become Tech’s best player in a long time.
“A lot of respect for Haynes King,” Norvell said Monday. “You’ve seen his growth throughout his career. I think he’ll be one of the best quarterbacks in the country.”
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