Cal Football: Purdue Running Back King Doerue Sets to Join Golden Bears

He rushed for 1,100 yards in his career but missed much of 2022 with a calf injury.

Jeff Faraudo | May 20, 2023

Cal added depth to its backfield with the announcement Saturday that Purdue’s King Doerue has committed out of the transfer portal.

Doerue, a 6-foot, 205-pound native of Amarillo, Texas, made the announcement during his second annual King Doerue Sweatbox Clinic for kids at Tascosa High, his former school.

“I built a good relationship with the running back coach, and I really liked the coaching staff,” Doerue told myhighplains.com, referring specifically to Cal running backs coach Aristotle Thompson. “Now I want to experience the West Coast a little bit and see how it is out there, but I had a great time at Purdue, but you know I’m taking my career elsewhere and I feel like Cal Berkeley is gonna be good for me.”

Doerue spent four seasons at Purdue but reportedly comes to Cal with two years of remaining eligibility.

He began the 2022 season as the Boilermakers’ starter but a calf injury limited Doerue to four games, during which he rushed for 97 yards and three touchdowns and caught six passes for 57 yards.

His career stats at Purdue include rushing 309 times for 1,145 yards with 10 touchdowns and making 47 catches for 381 yards and three TDs. His two best games both came against Big Ten rival Minnesota, when he rushed for 94 yards as a freshman in 2019 and 95 yards as a junior in 2021.

Doerue played at Purdue alongside quarterback Jack Plummer, who transferred to Cal before last season and became the Bears’ starter.

Doerue is not expected to be the Bears’ starting running back. That position belongs to sophomore Jaydn Ott, who rushed for nearly 900 yards last season. But Cal needs depth at the position after two other transfers — Justin Williams-Thomas and Byron Cardwell — sat out spring ball while recuperating from injuries.

The Bears recently added running back Isaiah Ifanse, an FCS-level All-American last season at Montana State, where he rushed for 3,742 career yards

Doerue was a three-star prospect out of Tascosa High after rushing for 1,356 yards and 27 total touchdowns as a senior in 2018, per MaxPreps.

He picked Purdue after getting attention from a long list of potential colleges, including Minnesota, Nebraska, Arkansas, Baylor, BYU, Iowa State, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Notre Dame, TCU, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, according to Rivals.

Cover photo of running back King Doerue by Nikos Frazier, Lafayette Courier and Journal

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

Published May 20, 2023

JEFF FARAUDO

Jeff Faraudo was a sports writer for Bay Area daily newspapers since he was 17 years old, and was the Oakland Tribune's Cal beat writer for 24 years. He covered eight Final Fours, four NBA Finals and four Summer Olympics.