D’Eriq King, Jordan Carmouche and Deontay Anderson arrived at Manvel High School via different routes — King from a year at Houston Westbury Christian, Carmouche from a season at Pearland and Anderson through the Alvin school district system.

Having arrived, they averaged 12 wins per season be- fore becoming part of a class that sent 11 players to FBS schools in February 2016 — Anderson to Mississippi, famously via a skydiving stunt preceding his announcement, Carmouche to SMU and King to Houston after backing off an extended commitment to TCU.

And now they’re back together again at UH, with Carmouche and Anderson having joined the increasing number of Texas high school players — A third of the 300-plus who sign FBS letters of intent this year — to switch schools at least once.

“My coach (Manvel’s Kirk Martin) always said that when people leave the city they come back, and that’s what happened,” King said. “My high school teammates still have a group message, and we talk every single day. I’ll know these guys forever.”

King enters his senior year as a potential awards candidate as one of the region’s top quarterbacks. Carmouche at linebacker and Anderson at safety are projected starters on a revamped defense that had the better of King’s offense for most of spring drills — in part because King, who is recovering from an injury that sidelined him for much of No- vember 2018, was off limits to contact.

King began at UH in 2016 as a wide receiver be- fore being moved to quarterback. Anderson, mean- while, won all-SEC freshman notice his first year at Mississippi while Carmouche was a medical redshirt at SMU before a year at Navarro College. Both came to the conclusion that a return to Houston was best.

“When you go that far away from home, you have to take care of yourself and grow up,” Ander- son said. “It has its pros and cons.”

Anderson will move in with King this fall, and Carmouche lives down the street. All are optimistic for UH’s first season under Dana Holgorsen. They communicate well off the field, too, finishing each other’s sentences when it comes to the difficulty of playing against King.

“You can say you can keep him contained,” Anderson said. “But you can’t,” Carmouche added. “He’s like LeBron (James). He’ll get his. You have to stop everybody else.”