When RJ Harvey arrived at UCF just after the COVID pandemic knocked the world off its orbit, he was in a state of transition.
He wasn’t supposed to be a running back. At least in his mind. He played quarterback his entire life. He didn’t even know how to be a running back. But he certainly did know how to run with a football. So it surely would be easy, he figured.
Easy would be the last word he would choose to describe his career now. He’s one of the best running backs in college football, but his path has not been paved. It was chock-full of gravel and pot holes.
“After I tore my ACL, I didn’t want to play football no more,” Harvey said recently, reflecting on his knee ligament tear in the summer 2021. “There was another time I was like that too, in 2022. I didn’t play the first two or three games, and I didn’t know why.
“I told my dad and my mom I didn’t want to play no more. But I guess everything just happens for a reason. I just went with it. It was really just praying and my support system. I was just talking to God and just praying a lot. That helped me a lot.”
Robert Sr. and Juliet Harvey have always been there for their children, son Robert Jr. (RJ), who just turned 23 last week, and daughters Brianna, 26, who is in the nursing program at UCF, and Alaina, 19, who is playing softball at Allen University in Columbia, S.C.
As things turned out, had he tore his ACL any other place, that may have been the end of his career. At home, however, he had many people to lean on.
“I’m amazed. It’s been a long road, from where I’ve been,” Harvey said. “But I just try to stay humble, and just stay focused, keep grinding and stay away from all of the distractions.”
Robert Harvey Sr., says he’s not surprised.
“That’s RJ,” dad said. “Nothing bothers him. You’ll probably never see him being frustrated. Maybe during a game because he hates to lose.
“He’s a happy kid. Always has been. We raised him in the church. Our whole family has been good role models for him and my daughters.”
Big 12’s best?
RJ’s name should be on the lips of every TV talking head in the country this year when it comes to the best running backs in college football. He proved that last season, rushing for 1,416 yards and 16 touchdowns.
He averaged 6 yards per carry and wound up No. 6 in the nation for the 2023 season. Those running backs ahead of him also return for 2024.
When it comes to Big 12 running backs, it’s all about Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon, the nation’s leading rusher, and Tahj Brooks of Texas Tech. Gordon ran for just 25 yards against the Knights in November. Harvey ran for 207 in that game, a 45-3 UCF rout.
Brooks ran for 1,538 yards, just ahead of Harvey. He had 182 in Tech’s 25-24 win over UCF. Harvey had 78 — the only game in UCF’s final eight in which he did not reach 100 yards.
“I still feel like I’m not talked about enough,” Harvey said. “I feel like these people, they pay attention to all these other running backs in the Big 12 and they don’t really think about me. They think about the running back at Oklahoma State or the one at Texas Tech.
“I just feel I’m better than them, so that’s my goal; to show that I’m the best running back in the Big 12.”
Looking back, Harvey laughs a bit. But, he’s only looking forward now. He has two seasons of eligibility left, with his COVID season, but he said this is it for him.
“No matter how this season goes,” Harvey said. “I’m only doing one more year.”
He’s coming out for the NFL draft in 2025 and is looking to make his mark.
“When I got to UCF, I didn’t even know how to take a handoff,” Harvey said. “I’m serious. I didn’t. I never had to before. I was always handing off.”
Or running the ball out of the Shotgun, or under center as a quarterback. Everyone knew he was athletic and fast and tough.
That’s why former UCF coach Josh Heupel insisted that if Harvey was coming to UCF, he was going to be a running back.
Numerous colleges recruiting him out of Orlando Edgewater High wanted him to play running back even though he had no experience at it.
He left Edgewater the year before COVID hit in 2019 intent on playing quarterback at Virginia. He remained head strong. He was a quarterback.
What he did not expect was what it would be like to live away from home. He was 18 years old, living in a new state.
“I was homesick really. I was up there in Charlottesville, Va., and it was a small town and there wasn’t really a lot to do up there. Not like Orlando,” Harvey said. “I just wanted to come back home.”
Dad said RJ was confident about playing for UCF no matter the position.
“RJ has always been a confident kid,” he said. “RJ is a football player. RJ played football from the time he was 5 years old and he played on both sides of the ball. If they told him he had to play defensive back, I’m convinced he would have been able to do that.”
Heupel welcomed him and insisted he learn how to take handoffs. Simple enough.
“I think the only time he ever played running back was in flag football, but then we moved him to quarterback and from then on he never wanted to play anything but quarterback,” his father said. “Believe it or not, this is going to be just his third year of playing running back, so he’s still fresh. He’s still learning.”
Reinventing himself
At Edgewater, he ruled high school football.
Edgewater coach Cameron Duke watched Harvey play a game for the Eagles a year before he took the job.
“I was still at Lake Highland, and I went over to Edgewater to watch Coach [Rick] Darlington’s Apopka team,” Duke said recently. “I didn’t know who RJ was. I’ll never forget it. Apopka beat Edgewater really bad [78-0], but I saw RJ out there, running around and battling and competing … they were down huge and this guy was still out there trying to make plays.”
At UCF he would have to prove himself all over again.
He joined the Knights as a walk-on in August 2020, without a scholarship but with a promise from Heupel. Come January, he would receive a scholarship.
He busted his tail in fall practice, but he still only played three snaps in 2020.
Three snaps, three yards.
And then Heupel left. He took the job at Tennessee.
“He kept his word, too,” Harvey said. “He left in January [2021], but before he left he put me on full scholarship.”
On to coach No. 3 in Harvey’s two years of college football. Being in transition was becoming the norm but he also was one of the most resilient people Duke had ever coached.
The kid was a leader, on and off the field.
“RJ was just somebody who I wanted our program to be all about,” Duke said. “He handled business in the classroom, in the weight room, on the field. Just super consistent. I look at the success that we have had the last seven years and if there’s one person I can credit that to, one of them certainly would be R.J.”
Edgewater lost all 10 of its games in 2016 by a margin of 41 points a game. The Eagles were shut out seven times, but Harvey was leading his team through it all. He never gave up no matter what that scoreboard read.
With Duke at the helm the next season, and Harvey full of confidence, he lost only five games the rest of his high school career, going 9-3 as a junior and 12-2 as a senior, one game away from competing for the Class 7A title.
As a senior, Harvey passed for 1,787 yards and rushed for 1,376 yards. He accounted for 48 touchdowns.
At UCF things were starting to work out. He had a solid spring practice period and let his arrival be known in the 2021 spring game.
No. 7
Gus Malzahn is now the Knights’ coach. Harvey had to acclimate himself and he did all that was asked of him.
It did take a while for Malzahn to notice.
“He didn’t really know who I was. He used to just call me by my [No. 44] jersey number,” Harvey said. “Once he starts calling you by your name that’s when you know he really likes you.”
He was competing for UCF’s starting running back position with Isaiah Bowser, and Harvey was feeling pretty good during 2022 fall practice. He was starting to feel like someone other than No. 44 coming off tearing his ACL the previous preseason.
“I was getting frustrated,” Harvey said of the 2021 injury, “because I knew I was going to play, no matter if me or Boswer got the starting job.”
The last time he’d played a competitive football game was in 2018. He’d faced six months of rehab. Could he still take a hit?
He needed support to keep going forward.
“My family members, my mom and my dad, and my high school coach, Coach Duke, and my teammates and my athletic trainers who were helping me out every day,” Harvey said.
“I tried coming in with a positive attitude every day, but it was a tough time. It was hard and it hurt.’
Harvey has earned every inch of every step he has taken.
“To see what he’s doing at UCF is special. It’s special to me and to everyone here in the Edgewater family,” Duke said. “And I’m not surprised at all. He stayed the course in high school and in college. His perseverance has been rewarded. There is no doubt perseverance is part of his DNA.”
The R stands for Robert. It may as well stand for Resilient.
And that should lead to Duke being able to boast about having coached two running backs who ended up in the NFL. The future looms bright for Harvey and, eventually, fellow Edgewater alum and Texas standout sophomore CJ Baxter.
“I wish I could say I can take credit for that,” Duke said. “But they’re the ones. They put in the work, they followed the blueprint, they’ve been given great God-given talent, they come from great families. I just tip my hat to their families.”
And Harvey is looking to have a lengthy NFL career.
“This year [2024 NFL draft] they had me projected to go in like the sixth round,” he said. “My goal is first or second round.”
But first there is a final college season.
“We know we’re going to have a good team. We just got to put everything together and hold everybody accountable,” Harvey said.
Malzahn knows exactly who his running back is now.
“He’s starting to come out of his shell,” said Malzahn said after Harvey eclipsed 200 yards against Texas Tech. “He’s one of those guys that when he speaks, everybody listens. They have a lot of respect for him and he’s a super young man with a super heart.”
And KJ Jefferson, a transfer from Arkansas, will play quarterback.
“He’s a stud. I was excited about that,” Harvey said. “When you have a dual-threat quarterback like him, it’s easy to run the ball as a running back. I can’t wait.”
Dad can’t wait either.
“Next season is going to be one for the record books.”
Chris Hays covers high school and college football, as well as college football recruiting. He can be found on X @OS_ChrisHays or on Instagram @OS_ChrisHays. He can be reached via email at chays@orlanodsentinel.com.
