Cam Ward and Kyron Drones are cousins and training partners. And now they're opponents. - ESPN

Every week, Darrell Colbert Jr. gets on a group FaceTime call with the quarterbacks he trains to go over their performances, the good and the bad. Their relentless competition during their offseason sessions carries into the phone calls, as they compare stats, throws and even interceptions.

But this week, there was no call.

Not with Cam Ward and Kyron Drones set to square off against each other Friday night as No. 7 Miami faces Virginia Tech (7:30 ET, ESPN/ESPN App) in a pivotal ACC game. There is nothing for them to say until the final seconds tick off the clock.

How they got here speaks to the unpredictability that goes with life as a quarterback. Here we have two people playing the position from Texas, cousins on their mother's sides, who were rated very differently as prospects in high school: Ward barely recruited, Drones a four-star prospect.

Yet they both landed where they were meant to be, thanks to the transfer portal: Ward at Miami, as one of the leading early-season Heisman contenders, and Drones at Virginia Tech, where he finally feels like he is home.

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

«This was never supposed to happen,» Colbert said.

Ward and Drones grew up less than an hour from each other outside Houston but had no idea they were related until high school. Even then, their first introduction came as quarterbacks seeking out the right personal coach to improve their skills.

As their dads watched them work out with retired Texas high school coaching legend Steve Van Meter, they got to talking. Calvin Ward told Kevin Drones that Cam was playing at West Columbia High.