Hurricanes have now had a player picked in 49 straight Drafts. As good as he was in Coral Gables, Kinchens is something of a Miami legend because of what he did at every level in South Florida.
First, he was a star in youth football. Next, he won state championships with the Bulls as a freshman, sophomore and junior, and was the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Co-Defensive Player of the Year for Classes 5A-2A with nine interceptions as a junior in 2019.
Finally, he started five games as a freshman for the Hurricanes in 2021, earned first-team All-American honors in 2022 and led the Atlantic Coast Conference in interceptions for the second straight season in 2023 before declaring for the NFL Draft. Altogether, Kinchens is one of the most accomplished players to come out of Dade County in years, which is why he was a top-100 prospect in this Draft, even without standout athletic traits.
Kinchens’ intelligence and instincts let him take over a starting role as a freshman in 2021 — opposite James Williams, who was also a freshman and is projected to be selected sometime this weekend — and then led the Power Five conferences with six interceptions in 2022 and the ACC with five interceptions last year. In three years at Miami, Kinchens had 162 tackles, 11 interceptions, 26 passes defended, five tackles for loss, one sack and two forced fumbles.
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