Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

The University of Miami was once known as Quarterback U, and for good reason. In a single decade, the powerhouse football program produced future Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, along with Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde and Steve Walsh, all of whom spent at least a decade in the NFL taking teams to the playoffs or, in Kelly’s case, Super Bowls.

But it’s been more than 30 years since the Hurricanes had a quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, the last being Walsh, whom the Cowboys selected with a supplemental pick in 1989. The drought in Miami has been long and severe.

Though the Hurricanes are tied with Alabama for the most consecutive years (14, stretching from 1995-2008 in Miami’s case) of having at least one player go in the first round only twice in the past 20 years have they had a quarterback get drafted at all. Ken Dorsey went in the seventh round in 2003 to the 49ers and Brad Kaaya in the sixth in 2017 to the Lions, and they produced forgettable NFL careers.

But Tyler Van Dyke, a Connecticut native with the type of size, arm and maturity that plays well on Sundays, is on the verge of ending that dry spell.

Six months before Dorsey and the Hurricanes took the field with arguably the greatest college football team of all time and embarked on what remains their last national championship season in 2001, Amy Van Dyke’s water broke halfway through the Connecticut bar exam. She called her doctor, her husband, Bill, and her mother, Cathie. Then she sat back down to finish the exam before making it to the hospital in time to give birth to her first child, a baby boy. Tyler Van Dyke is 21 years old now, Miami’s 6-foot-4, 225-pound redshirt sophomore quarterback and a projected first-round NFL draft pick, whenever he turns pro.

Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal, whom Miami hired away from Oregon in December in an effort to rebuild a once storied football factory that had rusted away like the remnants of the Orange Bowl, said after getting the job and watching film of Van Dyke, “There’s not a better quarterback in the country.”

Less biased opinions don’t differ by much.

Mel Kiper, the longtime NFL Draft analyst for ESPN, said the former Suffield (Conn.) Academy standout “really impressed me once he took over as the Hurricanes’ starter. He is a big (and mobile) quarterback with a tremendous arm.” Kiper noted one particular touchdown pass against Duke last season. Van Dyke zipped a 14-yard throw to receiver Charleston Rambo’s back shoulder despite the cornerback’s blanket coverage.

“Van Dyke can stick the ball into tight windows with accuracy,” wrote Kiper, who ranks Van Dyke 12th overall and the third-best quarterback behind Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud on his big board of 2023 draft prospects. “I expect a big season from him in 2022, and he could rise even higher.”

Kiper’s not alone. Van Dyke was named to this year’s watch list for the Maxwell Award, given each year to college football’s best player, and Pro Football Focus likes his value to win the Heisman Trophy at 30-1 odds.

One early NFL mock draft from ESPN, meanwhile, has Van Dyke going 10th overall next April to the Giants, who have quarterback Daniel Jones in precarious position as he enters his fourth season of what has been a middling-at-best career.

It’s easy to see why Van Dyke has his fans, even when only looking at his physical skills, which include a big arm, impressive touch and good mobility. A pro-style quarterback in the Justin Herbert mold, his body of work, albeit brief, has been eye-opening, too. In 10 games last season, he threw for 2,931 yards and 25 touchdowns with six interceptions. That included a run of six straight games in which he passed for at least 300 yards and three touchdowns. Miami went 5-1 in that span, paving the way for Van Dyke to be named ACC Rookie of the Year.

That Van Dyke, who was recruited by a number of good-but-not-great Power 5 programs, including Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA and Syracuse, ended up at Miami in the first place is the result of some providence.

In 2010, when Tyler was 9, he and his family went to a Patriots-Dolphins game in Miami — they knew then-Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano through Amy’s father, Bill Leete. Bill played quarterback at Vermont (he’s in the school’s Hall of Fame), coached at Hofstra and eventually became athletic director at the University of New Haven, where Sparano once coached. Tyler spent part of that South Florida day throwing a football in the parking lot of Hard Rock Stadium, which is also home to the Hurricanes.

“It is sort of surreal,” Amy Van Dyke told The Post. “He was carrying and throwing a football all around at the stadium and he’s now playing there. That’s kind of amazing to us.”

Van Dyke took over in the fourth game last year as a redshirt freshman. He went 6-3 as a starter, but drew high praise for his individual play and leadership. Miami finished 7-5 and accepted a Sun Bowl bid to play Washington State before withdrawing due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Still, the excitement over Van Dyke (and in turn, Miami) began building for the 2022 season and now is on the cusp of exploding.

“I just try to block it out, because good or bad [the praise or criticism] can get in your head,” the Glastonbury, Conn., native told The Post. “Every school has fans, but I don’t think they are like they are down here. It’s not a college town. There are a lot more grown-up fans than there are college students. They grew up watching those teams from the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s that were the best in the country, so I understand the frustration [of not winning].

“That’s why I’m here to try to help bring that back for the city.”

Van Dyke’s emergence as a future NFL quarterback was hardly linear.

During his freshman year at Glastonbury High School, he was moved from quarterback to wide receiver on the varsity team during spring ball. So he and his parents started looking elsewhere and settled on Suffield Academy, a prep school about 30 minutes north where yearly tuition is north of $60,000 for boarding students and about half that for day students. Van Dyke lived at home and commuted.

Though a New England prep school might seem like an unusual – and expensive – choice, Suffield’s rigorous academic standards, college-style atmosphere (its 400-plus students hail from more than 25 countries and 20 U.S. states) and football team that runs a pro-style offense were an appealing combination for the family. Van Dyke comes from an athletic lineage. His dad, now an actuary for Deloitte, played football, basketball and baseball at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. His mom, who is senior counsel for Eversource Energy, played volleyball there. His younger sister, Hannah, plays basketball at Division III St. Lawrence.

By the time he enrolled at Suffield, Van Dyke already was working with a personal quarterback coach, Connecticut-based Travis Meyer. And he’d shown a proclivity for completing passes even long before that, tossing a glow-in-the-dark rubber ball back and forth with his dad on a nightly basis from his crib as a 2-year-old. Bill Van Dyke said his son, who has played quarterback since he was 8, was always bigger and more talented than other kids his age, and had sprouted to over 6-foot-1 as a freshman.

“We had already known Tyler had a lot of talent,” Bill Van Dyke told The Post. “By fourth or fifth grade we knew he’d play college football at some level. … It was pretty obvious we had to do something. And if you send a kid to a prep school, their development [academically and athletically] is so much quicker and better.”

It didn’t start well. On Van Dyke’s first series for Suffield as a freshman, with the team trailing 21-7 in the first quarter against Deerfield Academy, he rolled right, threw across his body to the middle of the field and threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

Back then, he admits, he trusted his arm too much (and still does at times). Yet he also had the ability to lead Suffield to a comeback victory in the game. “You saw things to come because he came right back [from the interception] and leads us to a touchdown right before the half and we got the win,” Suffield coach Drew Gamere told The Post. “But his first two years he split time, which I think was good for him. He was able to develop without all the pressure on him and compete.

“He had great physical skills — he could really throw the ball for a 14-year-old — but he had a presence about him. It’s not really verbal, but he’s got a confidence in his ability, and he earned his playing time. … There was a progression. He works extremely hard, so the physical piece came from that, but he really loves football.”

Still, it wasn’t until Van Dyke’s junior year that he finally took over as the full-time starter. As a senior, he led Suffield to an undefeated season and the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council Class A championship.

“He has always taken on a challenge,” Amy Van Dyke said. “Everything is a game to him. He’ll make anything into a game. He doesn’t want anybody looking at him as a slacker. He has a need to get better at things.”

There were forays into other sports. He played basketball and baseball at Suffield, where he was named the Western New England Prep Baseball League Pitcher of the Year as a junior after going 6-0 with a 1.08 ERA for the league champions. He’s also a terrific golfer, with a 2.5-handicap index. But football captivated him – after sixth grade he told his father he didn’t want to play AAU baseball anymore and instead wanted to focus on training for football in the summer.

Van Dyke grew up an Eagles fan, particularly of Donovan McNabb, and he had a Fathead of running back LeSean McCoy on his bedroom wall. He also had a copy of Tom Brady’s TB12 book. As a quarterback growing up in New England, he couldn’t help but be influenced by the longtime Patriots superstar. He took what he learned about his NFL heroes and applied some of their tactics. In high school, he routinely put in extra time throwing routes with his receivers after practice and in the offseason.

“Everything is a game to him. He’ll make anything into a game. He doesn’t want anybody looking at him as a slacker. He has a need to get better at things.”

“He’s a game-changer,” said Syracuse safety Justin Barron, who played receiver at Suffield when Van Dyke was quarterback. “He has all the intangibles. He’s a guy who’s going to come to you on the sideline and tell you what he saw and what you need to do, and he’s one of those guys who’s going to put the ball where it needs to be. What I remember from playing with him is the relationships he had with his receivers. If he trusts you, he’s going to throw it up and give you a chance.

“There are a lot of quarterbacks who can throw it hard with a tight spiral, and then there are QBs who have touch and hit you in stride. He’s one of those guys.”

Still, as much as Van Dyke trusted his arm, there were times when he wondered if he would ever be the guy.

In December 2018, then-Miami coach Mark Richt, who was recruiting Van Dyke – a high school junior at the time –  abruptly retired. Left scrambling to find a replacement, Miami hired its defensive coordinator, Manny Diaz, who already had a deal to take over as Temple’s head coach.

Many recruits in Van Dyke’s position would have looked elsewhere. But Diaz, as part of sweeping staff changes, lured away Alabama quarterbacks coach Dan Enos to become Miami’s offensive coordinator. Van Dyke took an unpublicized trip to Miami that spring, and his time with Enos solidified his commitment to the Hurricanes.

In 2020, though, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Van Dyke twice tested positive. COVID decimated the schedule, so the NCAA granted athletes an extra year of eligibility. That meant Van Dyke would have to wait to get his shot with incumbent D’Eriq King returning in 2021 for what would be his sixth season.

Thanks for making the trip to CT @CoachDanEnos 🙌 pic.twitter.com/E71FnM0HkT

Van Dyke then found himself battling with five-star recruit Jake Garcia for the backup role in fall camp before last season. When he wasn’t getting the reps in practice that he hoped for, his confidence plummeted.

“It was probably my lowest point [at the school],” Van Dyke said. “I was doubting myself, doubting the player I was. I would call my parents every night and have them give me that reinforcement that they believe in me, and I just tried to start believing in myself.”

He needed that reinforcement sooner than expected.

In Miami’s season opener against defending national champion Alabama, King was battered and bruised in a 44-13 shellacking. Two games later, after another physical loss to Michigan State, King’s year was done, courtesy of season-ending shoulder surgery.

The following week, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit blasted Miami on “College GameDay,” saying, in part, that “football doesn’t matter” to the powers that be at the school. The criticism came in the wake of a Miami Herald story in which multiple sources shed a light on disarray surrounding the football program from an administrative level on down.

Van Dyke and Garcia split time in Miami’s next game against lowly Central Connecticut State, but Garcia came away with an ankle injury that would sideline him for the rest of the year. The job became Van Dyke’s, whether he was ready or not.

Miami lost Van Dyke’s first two starts, at home by five against Virginia and by three at North Carolina, the latter coming when a Van Dyke pass was tipped at the line and picked off — his third interception of the game — with six seconds left and the Hurricanes on the Tar Heels’ 16-yard line. He then threw four touchdowns in an upset win over No. 18 N.C. State and put up 428 yards to take down No. 17 Pittsburgh and future first-round pick Kenny Pickett.

Against an abysmal Florida State two weeks later, Miami’s defense surrendered a first down on 4th-and-14 with under a minute to go and blew a 28-20 fourth-quarter lead to lose to its arch rival. Diaz was fired two days later.

In the months that followed, Miami opened its checkbook and landed Cristobal — a member of national championship teams as a player for Miami in 1989 and ’91 — with a 10-year deal worth $80 million, as well as Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich for $3 million a year.

Amid all the turmoil, the idea of transferring rarely came up, Van Dyke and his parents said. Happy with the warm climate, the starting role, NIL deals that he inked following last season — including one with Hurricanes mega-booster John Ruiz’s security software company LifeWallet for a reported $50,000 — and the direction Miami is headed, the even-keeled business major is glad he stuck it out.

While Van Dyke’s game isn’t without flaws — reading coverages faster is the area of his game he said he needs to improve the most, while some point to smaller details like his front knee occasionally ending up too far over his toes, causing a loss of power/accuracy — he’s now in position to help guide Miami back to prominence, become its first quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL Draft in more than three decades and become something even more rare, a quarterback from Connecticut to make it to the highest level of the sport. Only a few ever have. The last quarterback from the Nutmeg State to go in the first round was future Hall of Famer Steve Young, who went No. 1 overall in 1984. (Kentucky senior Will Levis, who played at Xavier High School in Middletown, Conn., is also expected to be a high draft pick).

But Van Dyke says he isn’t worried about any of that right now.

“I just want a chance to compete for an ACC championship and possibly a spot in the college football playoff,” he said. “Many people might not think it’s a possibility for us, but I think it is. For us, it’s all about understanding the small details. Once you understand those, that’s when Miami should be hard to beat.”

Whether that’s how this season plays out remains to be seen. What’s more certain is that a team once known for its prolific passers after more than 30 years finally has one again.