Mike's Big Moment

Mike's Big Moment

By Christy Cabrera Chirinos
HurricaneSports.com
 
CORAL GABLES, Fla. –
First, there was a 5-yard catch. Then another. Then a 41-yard grab. And before long, a 6-yard catch led to a touchdown run from one of his teammates.
 
When the Hurricanes took the field last Saturday for their first offensive possession against Louisville, it didn’t take long for Mike Harley to make an impact.
 
By the end of the day, the junior receiver had helped his quarterback make Miami history.
 
Harley finished with six catches for a career-high 116 yards and two touchdown catches in the Hurricanes’ 52-27 win over Louisville. His 28-yard grab in the third quarter was the sixth touchdown quarterback Jarren Williams threw on the day and set a new Hurricanes’ record for scoring passes thrown in a single game. It also tied the ACC mark in the same category.
 
It was a performance Harley says was years in the making.
 
“That game was like an outbreak game for me. The time was right for me,” Harley said. “It was like when the alarm clock wakes you up. God made it that time for me to do what I do best and show the world why I’m at the University of Miami and how I got to the University of Miami.”
 
For Harley, the journey to Miami began when his family moved to South Florida from Georgia and he started learning more about the program in Coral Gables. By the time he played high school football at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Harley knew he wanted to be a Hurricane and follow in the steps of players like Michael Irvin and Phillip Dorsett.
 
The receiver eventually became a four-star prospect, a U.S. Army All-American and was part of Miami’s highly touted 2017 recruiting class. But finding consistency once he got on campus was sometimes a challenge.
 
Harley occasionally showed off his playmaking ability, but it wasn’t until this season, during Miami’s 63-0 win over Bethune-Cookman in September, that Harley scored the first touchdown of his college career.
 
In the weeks since, Harley has emerged as a top target for Hurricanes quarterbacks. With two regular-season games left on the schedule, he has 34 catches for 447 yards. That’s good enough to put him second among all of Miami’s pass catchers behind only tight end Brevin Jordan.
 
Seeing the junior’s efforts translate to success on the field has been a boon for Harley’s teammates and coaches, including head coach Manny Diaz, whose sideline celebration with the receiver was captured by cameras during the Louisville win.
 
“Mike just goes a million miles an hour in everything we do,” Diaz said. “He’s been that way since training camp, but you want to see your success match it. You want your hardest workers to get rewarded in the game. The fact that is coming now is great.”
 
Added Williams, “He’s a guy that come out here every day and works his butt off. He doesn’t take a play off. He goes 120 percent on every play and he’s a guy that I know I can trust. I know he’s going to go all out.”
 
But Harley’s work ethic isn’t the only thing that stands out, the Hurricanes say.
 
The junior has embraced his role as one of the leaders in the locker room and when the team was struggling ahead of its 16-12 win at Pittsburgh last month, Harley was one of the players who did his best to bring the Hurricanes together.
 
“His role, during Pitt week, was massive,” Diaz said. “His voice mattered and the team respected him because again, they know he works so hard and he cares so much. … This program, right now, is getting back to the pride of what it means to play for the Miami Hurricanes and there’s no one that identifies with that more than Mike.”
 
That mindset, for Harley, extends beyond the football field.
 
Earlier this year, Harley was one of seven current and former Miami football players that spent part of their spring break on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
 
There, the Hurricanes spent time delivering food to families in need, helped paint homes and spent time playing baseball and kickball with orphans living in a local group home.
  
The experience, Harley said, changed him – and made him appreciate his experience at Miami even more.
 
“That trip changed my whole life and how I look at life. It made me feel so grateful to be in this country, period. Taking that trip and coming back here, you really realized how many kids would die to be here, playing this sport,” Harley said. “I think about a lot of the things I went through when I was growing up, but that trip changed everything.
 
“I’m so grateful to be here. A lot of people don’t even get the opportunity to get an offer from the University of Miami. Where I’m from, if you graduate from high school you’ve made it. If you do something like go to the University of Miami, a lot of people back home see it. I give the youth hope and motivation, to show them if I can do it, you can do it. The University of Miami, period, it’s national champions. There are greats that have walked here. Every time I come to practice, I give God the glory and never take this for granted.”