Every week, Darrell Colbert Jr. performs. a group FaceTime call with the quarterbacks he trains to discuss their performances, the good and the bad. Their ruthless competition during their offseason sessions continues in the phone calls, as they compare stats, throws and even interceptions.

But this week there was no phone call.

Not with Cam Ward and Kyron Drones going head-to-head Friday night as No. 7 Miami faces Virginia Tech (7:30 ET, ESPN/ESPN App) in a crucial ACC game. They can’t say anything more until the final seconds tick off the clock.

How they got here says something about the unpredictability that comes with life as a quarterback. Here we have two people from Texas playing the position, cousins ​​on their mother’s side, who were rated very differently as prospects in high school: Ward was barely recruited, Drones a four-star prospect.

Yet they both ended up where they were meant to be, thanks to the transfer portal: Ward in Miami, as one of the leading early-season Heisman candidates, and Drones at Virginia Tech, where he finally feels like he’s home.

If you had told Colbert, when he started working with Ward and Drones, that one day he would hop on a plane to Miami to watch them play each other, he would have laughed.

“This should never have happened,” Colbert said.

Ward and Drones grew up less than an hour apart outside of Houston, but had no idea they were related until high school. Even then, their first introduction came when quarterbacks were looking for the right personal coach to hone their skills.

As their father watched them train with retired Texas coaching legend Steve Van Meter, they started talking. Calvin Ward told Kevin Drones that Cam played at West Columbia High. Kevin, a longtime assistant high school coach in the state, said his wife was from the nearby town of Angleton. Calvin Ward said his wife was also from Angleton.

They all called home. Sure enough, their wives were second cousins ​​and had grown up together. But as they grew older and moved to different cities and became busy with their respective families, they lost touch. Cam and Kyron allowed them to reconnect, and the familial bond helped grow the relationship between the quarterbacks.

After Van Meter returned to full-time high school coaching, Drones and Ward needed a new quarterback coach to help them. Drones connected with Colbert in 2019 during his freshman year of high school through his coaching staff. Colbert, who is 28, played for the Drones offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach during his high school career, so he knew the ins and outs of what they wanted the Drones to do.

Ward also began working with Colbert in 2021 after a year at FCS Incarnate Word.

“We definitely got closer when we started training together,” Kyron Drones said. “It’s going to be really competitive. Really talking trash and confusing each other about how we can get better. We’re all trying to get to that end goal, which is the NFL. Hopefully we’re in the same draft together.”

Ward graduated high school in 2020 a year before Drones. Ward was stuck in a wing-T offense and had so few opportunities to throw that recruiters didn’t give him much consideration. The truth is, the Wards didn’t even realize how good Cam could be until they started working with Van Meter. Ward had plans to play basketball in college. But during one of their early practices together, Van Meter pulled Calvin Ward aside.

“Look at this,” Van Meter said to Calvin Ward.

Van Meter had Cam get on the right hashmark, and he had the receiver get on the left hashmark and run 15 yards. Cam hit it perfectly.

“So he told Cameron, ‘Look, you can probably go all over the country and find every 6-foot shooting guard in basketball, but you’re probably one of the best 6-2 quarterbacks I’ve ever coached. ‘ and he had coached in high school for 30 years,” Calvin Ward said. “So from that point on, his mentality changed that even though he wasn’t in a system in high school that could showcase his talents, maybe there’s one here. possibility.”

Although Calvin traveled around the country taking Cam to camps, the only scholarship offer he received was a scholarship to Incarnate Word. So he took it.

Meanwhile, in Pearland, Texas, Drones was an overlooked high school prospect early in his career. He also dreamed of playing college basketball. But as a junior, he led Shadow Creek High to a state championship in 2019 – with his father on the coaching staff. The offers soon poured in.

Initially, Drones preferred to go to Auburn. But then COVID-19 shut down recruiting his senior year and he couldn’t take official visits.

Drones ultimately accepted the last Power 5 offer in the state of Texas, heading to Baylor in 2021. But after two years there, Drones was still the backup and decided he wanted a fresh start. He entered the transfer portal. Virginia Tech was the first school to visit him in Waco.

“He was just looking for someone who was willing to give him a chance and be honest about giving him a chance,” Kevin Drones said. “We felt that right away at Virginia Tech. We just wanted to get an opportunity, an honest opportunity, not just lip service or you already have a guy you promised or whatever. Just be fair and honest.”

Drones arrived in Blacksburg in 2023 and didn’t immediately take over the runway. He only became the starter after Grant Wells was injured early in the season. But once Drones got his chance, he never looked back. Drones started 11 games last year and capped it off with a Military Bowl record with 176 yards rushing in a 41-20 win over Tulane, showing why many considered him one of the top returning dual-threat quarterbacks in the country.

Ward, meanwhile, had finally gotten the Power 5 opportunity he always wanted. But it wasn’t Miami. Not yet anyway.

In two years at UIW, he threw for 6,908 yards and led the school to a conference title in 2021. He transferred to Washington State in 2022 and also threw for more than 6,000 yards in two years there. When Ward opted to enter the transfer portal after the 2023 season, Drones knew there was a good chance he would play against his cousin this season.

It just took a while for someone to know for sure. Ward was unsure whether he would return to college. So indecisive, in fact, that he gave up his name for the NFL draft. His parents moved him to an apartment in Jacksonville, Florida, in January so he could begin preparations for the draft with a trainer.

But something was nagging at Calvin. Cam had him before the draft declaring how much he loved college football, and how much he still had to prove. “I think I’ll go in the first round of the draft,” Cam told his father.

The NFL draft advisory board had him rated as a mid-to-late round pick. Calvin reminded Cam of their conversation as the deadline approached to withdraw his name from the draft. Miami had stayed in touch with Cam, hoping he would change his mind.

“He said, ‘If you were me, what would you do?’” Calvin recalled. “I said, ‘This is your decision.’ He said, ‘I want to go to Miami.’ If you could have seen his face it would have looked like Christmas lights.”

Calvin says this happened two days before the draft deadline. He and his wife, Patrice, helped Cam pack up the apartment he had just rented. Cam enrolled online for a graduate program in Miami. Then they took off and drove down Interstate 95 with Cam driving his car and his parents riding in a rented SUV while Cam’s 135-pound Rottweiler, Uno, made the trip alongside them.

With Ward joining the Hurricanes, expectations for the season skyrocketed. But they also went up for the Hokies, who brought back Drones, along with their leading rusher, top four receivers and almost everyone on the offensive line. When the ACC schedule was finally released in January, Ward and Drones saw the dream matchup: Virginia Tech at Miami, September 27.

“I circled this game,” Drones said.

Colbert offered some advice, since Ward and another quarterback who trains with them, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, played against each other last year.

“I told Kyron, ‘Just know that Cam won’t talk to you all week; don’t expect him to say hi before the game,'” Colbert said with a laugh.

But Colbert added that the looming match further fueled their competition during offseason workouts. Maybe more for Ward, who has never been shy about talking a bit of nonsense.

“Say we’re doing a drill and Kyron throws the ball a little high or a little behind,” Colbert says. “Cam would say, ‘Oh, that’s a pick against my guys.’ Often they are small shots: ‘That’s a turnover on downs, now I’m going to score.’ Cam always starts it.”

Cam Ward credits the workouts with Colbert and the training with Sanders and Drones for helping him get better.

“He’s one of the best quarterback coaches in the game,” Cam Ward said. “With me, Shedeur and Kyron, Darrell gets us right. He also lets us have our own little style in training of how we play our game. He makes us focus on the little things, and that’s where I feeling of having.” I’ve been better at it.”

Ward is off to a hot start this season, ranking second in the nation in passing yards (1,439) while leading undefeated Miami to a total of 209 points – the most the Hurricanes have scored in the first four games of any season.

Virginia Tech gets off to a slower start at 2-2 as Drones and the offense try to find their balance. Kevin Drones noticed Kyron was putting too much pressure on himself earlier this season and told him to play loose and have fun. So far, Drones has totaled 974 yards of offense, with six touchdowns and three interceptions.

But as Ward said last week after a win over USF, what’s happened so far is irrelevant. ACC play begins with a familiar face on the sidelines, a highly anticipated matchup between the Ward and Drones households. Unfortunately for Kevin Drones, he cannot attend because he has a high school game to coach that evening.

But his wife Olinka will be there. This also applies to Patrice and Calvin. The two cousins ​​will see each other before the game before sitting in their respective team sections. Colbert won’t be able to choose sides. Instead: “Hopefully those guys can go out there and play one of those legendary games, so every time I turn on social media for the rest of the weekend, all I see is Kyron Drones and Cam Ward.”

Ward was, predictably, fairly tight-lipped when asked about the possibility of opening ACC play against the Drones. “I’m just ready to play the game,” Ward said.

Kyron on the other hand?

“Cam is going to watch when we play in Miami,” he said. “(I’ll) just show him who the real No. 1 is.”