During Miami’s scrimmage last week, redshirt sophomore Dayall Harris proved that making plays on the field is like second nature to him.
“I think it was a broken assignment by the defense,” Harris said while describing a big play he made last week. “The corner had stayed hard at 10, and I just ran by him and he threw it over the top -- made the play.”
Harris has made a lot of plays thus far throughout camp, and teammates around him have taken notice.
“He’s fast, he’s agile, he’s quick -- he’s a consistent receiver,” Rosier said after practice Tuesday. "The big thing with him is just give him the ball in space and let him make moves.”
Dayall Harris has made many moves on the field so far as a ‘Cane, but the several moves he has made off the field brought him to Miami this summer.
Out of Callaway High School in Jackson, Mississippi, Harris was a four star prospect when he graduated in 2014. Harris signed with Ole Miss on National Signing Day, and entered camp with hands most recruiting analysts hailed as his greatest asset.
During his freshman year; however, Harris was redshirted in Oxford, and was later suspended in 2014 due to ‘minor incidents’. Later on the next year in 2015, word came out that Harris was leaving Ole Miss, and the 6’3” athlete signed with Copiah-Lincoln Community College in the fall.
The school might have been rivals with East Mississippi Community College, the JUCO school referred to as “Last Chance U” by Netflix, but Harris was certainly playing out his final opportunity with stakes equally as high as those the characters dealt with in Netflix’s documentary series.
Not only did Harris respond to the challenge with his career on the line, but the 193 pound receiver amassed over 500 yards receiving in only 9 games, and helped the Wolfpack beat EMCC during the year.
“Junior college really, like, humbled me,” Harris said. “Junior college -- it showed me that you can have everything one day and the next day everything [can] be taken away. So, just taking a lot of things for granted that I took when I was at Ole Miss going JUCO, I wish that I had all the resources -- the tutoring, and the little snacks that I never ate.”
Despite having less resources than a Division 1 school, Harris had a great season at Copiah-Lincoln, and moved his way towards the #85 ranking in 247sports.com’s top 100 junior college player rankings. Harris then signed with the Miami Hurricanes in February, and enrolled on May 16th, intent on making an impact every day.
“ just come out and work,” Harris said on Tuesday. “Coach Dugans texts my phone, he’ll call me just to remind me like -- ‘I ain’t bring you down here to joke around, so get after it, make sure you are studying your playbook’.”
And since he got to Miami, Harris has played as hard as any receiver on the field.
“He’s ready to compete too, he makes a lot of plays for us,” redshirt senior Malcolm Lewis said. “He’s a tall guy, so he’s going up to grab the ball for us. I kind of like the energy he brings to our room too.”
Harris has brought energy to a rejuvenated program in Coral Gables, but even through all of his changes during the past two years, his mindset has stayed the same.
“No, I always have the same mentality,” Harris said. “Come out and kill everything I do, come out and attack everything I do.”
