Razorback Roster Rundown: No. 5 Rakeem Boyd
This article is part of a series previewing the Razorbacks’ 2020 football roster.
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Razorback Career
The only two players in UA history with a higher yards per carry career average than Rakeem Boyd are Felix Jones and Matt Jones. As that stat illustrates, he is one of the most explosive players to ever suit up for the Razorbacks.
Unfortunately, a late arrival from junior college and various injuries slowed him down and limited his touches in his first season at Arkansas. Despite having fewer than 10 carries in half of the games, Boyd still ran for 734 yards in 2018.
After the season, Boyd had surgery to repair a shoulder injury that has bothered him since he was at Texas A&M. It caused him to miss spring practice, but set him up for a huge redshirt junior season because he was finally healthy.
Boyd eclipsed the 100-yard mark five times, highlighted by a 185-yard performance on a season-low eight carries against Western Kentucky. He finished the year with 1,133 yards and eight touchdowns on 184 carries. His 6.16 yards per carry ranked 16th among the 56 FBS players with at least 1,000 yards last season.
Combining his two seasons with the Razorbacks, Boyd has 1,867 rushing yards, which already ranks 22nd in UA history. As mentioned above, his career 6.1 yards per carry ranks behind only Felix Jones’ 7.7 and Matt Jones’ 6.6.
2020 Expectations
Considering his individual success in the SEC and the team’s lack of winning, many speculated Boyd might enter the NFL Draft. He seriously considered it, but after multiple conversations with new head coach Sam Pittman, he announced he’d return for his senior season.
By doing so, he immediately became the Razorbacks’ best player for 2020. He is the most likely to earn All-SEC accolades and get drafted next year.
If he just replicates last season’s rushing total, Boyd would become the sixth player in UA history to reach 3,000 career yards. It’s an illustrious list that includes Darren McFadden, Alex Collins, Ben Cowins, Dickey Morton and Cedric Cobbs.
As long as he stays healthy, many people believe he’ll build on last year’s numbers in the running game. What he and the coaching staff will likely focus on are the other areas to fine-tune his game.
“He has to continue to catch the football better,” Pittman said. “I think that’s one of the things that came back on his evaluation, and we’re going to give him opportunities to pass protect a little bit more and become a more physical pass protector.
“Obviously he has great running skills and things of that nature, but those are two things that we talked to him about that he has to improve his game to certainly move up the draft board. To be honest with you, that is one of our jobs. One of our jobs is to get our players drafted as high as they possibly can, and we’re going to go to work for it.”
Over his first two seasons at Arkansas, Boyd has caught 42 passes for 325 yards - an average of 7.7 yards per reception. According to Pro Football Focus, he’s also dropped four passes and posted an average receiving grade close to 60.
Boyd made huge strides in pass protection between his first and second season with the Razorbacks, according to the analytics website. After posting an abysmal 40.1 pass-blocking grade in 2018, he raised it to 72.7 last season. A similar jump this year would likely lead to a jump up draft boards.
Recruiting Flashback
Arkansas was one of 13 Power Five programs who offered him as a 5.8 four-star recruit coming out of Houston’s Stratford High in the Class of 2016, but Boyd ultimately signed with Texas A&M.
After redshirting his first year with the Aggies, Boyd decided to leave College Station and take the JUCO route. He landed at Independence C.C. in Kansas, which was the featured school in the Netflix docuseries “Last Chance U” that season, and proceeded to rush for 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Throughout the year, it seemed like the Razorbacks would sign his teammate, defensive end Emmit Gooden, and Boyd would land at either Arizona or Colorado. Everything changed, though, when Bret Bielema was fired shortly after the season-ending loss to Missouri.
Gooden - who decommitted from Arkansas a few weeks earlier - ultimately ended up at Tennessee, but Boyd emerged as a legitimate possibility when the Razorbacks hired Chad Morris and Jeff Traylor. Although it wasn’t until the traditional signing period, Boyd committed to Arkansas the day after his official visit to Fayetteville, which was a couple weeks before National Signing Day.
TCU made a late push, even asking him to take an official visit to Fort Worth on the final available weekend. Not only did he stay solid to Arkansas, but Boyd - a 5.5 three-star coming out of JUCO - also took to Twitter to let everyone know he wouldn’t be taking any more visits.