Ryan Redding, left, and Kyle King watch K.J. Miller return a punt for Mary Hardin-Baylor. In this instance, it was Redding who then walked out onto the field to take control of the Cru offense. Photo by Joe Fusco, d3photography.com

By Riley Zayas
Managing Editor, True to the Cru

BELTON, Texas — In the first-round win over Trinity (Texas), Kyle King handled the reins of the UMHB offense. Last Saturday, in a 42-7 defeat of Birmingham-Southern, it was Ryan Redding who started at quarterback. And this week, against Linfield, head coach Pete Fredenburg has not determined who will start under center for his 12-0 Crusaders.

“The one that gets the nod will be the one that performs the best this week [in practice],” Fredenburg noted at Monday’s news conference.

“We felt like Kyle was not at his best and decided to give Ryan a chance,” Fredenburg added when asked about the decision to start Redding against BSC. “He took it and did a great job. We don’t necessarily have a controversy. We just have two really good quarterbacks.”

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That could not be more true. Especially when you consider the way both King and Redding have performed so far this season, leading an offense that is third in the nation in scoring offense. King, who started the first eight games of the season before being sidelined by a foot injury, has tallied 24 passing touchdowns with just two interceptions, throwing for 1,592 yards. When King went down prior to the matchup against Belhaven, Redding rose to the occasion in his first start as a Crusader. The senior threw for 114 yards in the 29-0 victory, and came back the following week to complete 21 of 28 passes with a total of four touchdowns in a 59-14 rout of Howard Payne.

Regardless of who has been on the field at quarterback for the Cru this season, the level of performance has been high. Granted, King’s 10-for-22 passing mark against Trinity was far from his best game of the year, and Redding completing just eight passes against Belhaven showed room for improvement, but the quarterback position goes further than that. Having the maturity of Redding and King, both seniors, has been critical in the overall success of the UMHB offense.

“What a wonderful young man,” Fredenburg said of Redding after Saturday’s win over BSC. “Kyle is as well. It’s awesome to have two great competitors at that position and we cannot go wrong with whoever starts.”

Having two quarterbacks each start multiple games, including playoff wins, is not something Fredenburg necessarily prepared for. But inevitably, due to the way a season plays out, has occurred, due to injuries and other factors along the way. Redding and King each have their individual attributes, and compete regularly during practice, but the most telling part of the relationship that exists between the two top-level signal callers at UMHB, is that there is nothing but support for each other.

“Obviously, they have some intangible qualities about them and skill sets that are a little bit different,” Fredenburg said of the two quarterbacks on Monday. “The most amazing thing is that the biggest fan of whoever is on the field is the one that’s on the sideline. They pull for each other and it is remarkable that they have a relationship that is so tight.”

That relationship stems from a shared knowledge of the pressures that involve the quarterback position at the college level. The competitor inside of each of them wants to beat the other out for the starting job, but it is the response to the roles and decisions made by the coaching staff when it comes to playing time that have allowed King and Redding to flourish this year.

“We’re both really good competitors and want to beat the other one out, but ever since Kyle transferred here, we’ve been really good friends,” Redding said recently. “It’s football. It’s personal to a certain extent but neither of us have taken it personal as ‘I’m jealous of you’ or ‘You’re in my way’. It’s more like, we want to win a national championship. Whoever is out there, we’re going to support.”

King agreed.

“We know what we go through,” King said. “We know how hard it is to play the position. We’re in meetings together. We’re in practice together. We know how lonely it can feel when you don't have a good game. Having Ryan support me is big for me. And I know my support for him as well is big for him. You can’t let ego get in the way.”

And ego certainly has not gotten in the way, not at the quarterback position and not anywhere else on the roster. The expectation from the program is a focus on one goal, and that goal does not involve any individual accolades.

“You don’t want to be a cancer to the team,” King said. “It’s easy to be a cancer. It’d be easy for me, if Ryan is having a bad game, to be in everybody’s ear, saying, ‘I should be in there.’ And it’d be easy for him to do the same thing, like when I was having a bad game against Trinity. But that’s why we are successful as a program at UMHB. Nobody does that.”

As the famed Notre Dame head coach Ara Parseghian once said, “A good coach will make his players see what they can be, rather than what they are.” For Redding and King both, who within the past year each spent time as the team’s second- or third-string quarterback, having an offensive coordinator like Stephen Lee was a driving force in building confidence. Entering Saturday’s matchup against Linfield, each had led the Crusaders to a playoff win, but when the abbreviated spring season kicked off in February 2021, neither King nor Redding had started a game in Belton.

“I’ve been able to be under Coach Lee for four years now, and I’ve learned a lot,” Redding noted. “He’s been able to help me learn the offense as well as I have, especially in the last year or two.”

“If I never would’ve played a down of football here at UMHB, I would’ve still come here because it has helped me so much mentally,” King said. “His knowledge of offense has been eye-opening to me. I’ve never had a coach like that before. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Coach Lee.”

“I’m blessed with a wonderful coaching staff,” Fredenburg added. “Coach Lee and his guys do a tremendous job of preparing us. When you execute the offense, whatever play is run, if you’re  prepared and have the reps, then it is very easy to move the ball and take what the defense gives you.”

Taking what the defense is giving has been a recurring point from Fredenburg throughout the course of the season. It has been an area of the offense that the Crusaders, paced by the play of their quarterbacks, have done extremely well. UMHB has converted on 51 percent of its third-down attempts and has steadily moved the ball to the tune of 23.5 first downs per game.

For Redding specifically, that ability to move the ball well when he has been under center is a direct byproduct,  not only of the direction from the coaching staff, but a confidence from the rest of the offense.

“I’m the same athlete I was in my first year,” Redding said. “Same arm, same legs, same talent. But I wasn’t able to do it because it was a confidence thing. The past two years, what has really helped me is having confidence from my teammates.”

Whether it has been King or Redding on the field, the rest of the offense has shown confidence in their quarterbacks, a crucial part of UMHB reaching this point of  the playoffs. But there is little time to relish what the Crusaders have accomplished in the calendar year 2021, winning a total of 17 games and two ASC championships between the spring and the fall. The focus is on a national championship, and that road continues for the Cru in Belton on Saturday.

“This is what you live for as a competitor,” King said. “This is what it’s all about. At the beginning of the year, we couldn’t have written the script any better.”

Riley Zayas is co-founder of the website True to the Cru, which covers Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics.