The call that King and Kaylon Miller waited their whole lives to receive came on their drive back from practice, late in their senior year at Calabasas High.
But Kaylon didn’t pick up. His phone marked the call as spam.
Fortunately for the twin brothers, their dream came with a follow-up text. When they called back, former USC offensive line coach Josh Henson delivered the good news. USC wanted both Kaylon, an offensive lineman, and King, a running back, to join the team as preferred walk-ons.
“We had to stop the car on the side of the road,” King said. “We were going crazy.”
“I turned to King, like, ‘What is life right now?’” Kaylon added. “There’s no way this opportunity is coming up.”
For most walk-ons, that might have been the end of the story, a momentous mile marker on the way to four seasons spent on scout team. But less than two years later, King Miller is slated to lead the way as a walk-on for No. 20 USC’s banged-up backfield against No. 13 Notre Dame in a high stakes rivalry matchup that could very well define the Trojans’ season.
It’s the sort of stage that iconic Notre Dame underdog Rudy could have only dreamed of.
For King Miller, though, this moment had always been in the back of his mind. As a kid, King dreamed of becoming a USC running back. And there was no sense in suggesting anything else, either.
“That was his mission, to get to USC,” his father, Mark Miller, says. “King has always had a mind of his own and does what he wants to do.”
But at Calabasas High, no matter what he did or how well he ran, the recruiting attention King coveted never really materialized. Coaches would come to watch his teammate, four-star wideout Aaron Butler, and walk away wondering about the 6-foot, 210-pound bruiser in the backfield.
Still, the initial interest, for one reason or another, never led to much.
“We ran the offense around him, through him,” Calabasas coach Cary Harris said of King. “We were selling him to coaches.”
Only a few — Portland State, San José State and Nevada — offered him a scholarship. Other coaches admitted to Harris that they thought King wasn’t fast enough to be a college running back.
USC coach Lincoln Riley was among those biding his time. Riley kept tabs on King for a while, assuming it was only a matter of time before a Power Four school handed him an offer. He wasn’t that far off then from getting one at USC, Riley says now.
By winter of their senior year, neither of the Miller twins knew quite where they were headed next. King had turned his attention to Portland State because they’d shown the most interest. Kaylon still didn’t have an offer.
That’s when the call came from Henson. They called their dad immediately after.
“That phone call was everything,” Mark Miller said. “For them to actually want them and to see the potential in them and give them an actual chance, that meant everything.”
But walking on also meant paying their own way, at one of the most expensive schools in America. It also came with no guarantees. When they sat down with Henson, a former walk-on himself, he was honest. They might not play until much later in their college career, he told them — if at all.
After that meeting, their parents asked if that was really the path they wanted.
“They were 100%,” Mark Miller said. “Regardless of what happened, they were going to work and prove they belonged.”
Within a year, both brothers made their mark at USC. Kaylon Miller opened this season as a redshirt freshman on the two-deep of the Trojans’ offensive line.
King seemed the less likely of the two to find his way onto the field, given the depth in USC’s backfield. But in Week 1 against Missouri State, he was called upon in the third quarter. On his just third collegiate carry, he exploded upfield through a crease in the defense. Kaylon, who was playing guard, walled off one side of the hole as King slipped through two defenders and took off for a 75-yard score.
Running as fast as he could behind King was his brother.
“King has worked his entire life to get to this point,” Kaylon said. “I always knew his day was going to come at one point.”
Those days have just kept coming for King since. A week later, he busted a 41-yard touchdown run in a win over Georgia Southern. Then last week, with the Trojans’ top two running backs out after halftime, Miller stepped seamlessly into a starring role.
Against Michigan, which boasted a top-10 rushing defense coming into the game, King rushed 18 times for 158 yards, none more impressive than when he took a handoff on third-and-26. Bursting through the hole, he stutter-stepped past one defender, then sped past two others for a 49-yard gain. It was his fourth run of 40-plus yards in just 29 carries.
And to think, some coaches were worried he wasn’t fast enough.
“If I see something, I’m gonna go,” King said. “I’m not gonna let someone single handedly take me down.”
That will need to be the case Saturday, when Miller leads a battered Trojan backfield into a stormy battle in South Bend. Miller leads the nation in yards per carry among running backs with more than 25 attempts (10.69), but Notre Dame boasts one of the best run defenses in college football, having held its last two opponents to 2.43 yards per carry.
It’s not the sort of stage most teams with College Football Playoff aspirations would willingly entrust to a walk-on. But King Miller — and his brother, Kaylon — aren’t going to be walk-ons for much longer.
When asked whether the King brothers would soon be awarded football scholarships, Riley responded:
“Those guys are clearly a matter of when not if.”
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