| RJ Harvey | |
| School: | UCF Knights |
| Pastschools: | |
| Currentnumber: | 7 |
| Position: | Running back |
| Class: | Senior |
| Bowlgames: | |
| Highschool: | Edgewater (Orlando, Florida) |
| Birth Place: | Orlando, Florida, U.S. |
| Height Ft: | 5 |
| Height In: | 9.5 |
| Weight Lb: | 220 |
| Espn: | 4568490 |
Robert "RJ" Harvey Jr. is an American college football running back for the UCF Knights. He previously played for the Virginia Cavaliers.
Harvey was born in Orlando, Florida.[1] He began playing football at age five.[2] He attended Edgewater High School in Orlando and played three varsity football seasons as a dual-threat quarterback.[2] Although the team lost every game in his sophomore year, he helped them rebound with a 9–3 record and district championship the following season.[2] As a senior, Harvey threw for 42 touchdowns and 1,815 passing yards and ran for 1,350 yards and 22 scores as the team reached the state playoffs with a 12–2 record.[3] He also maintained a 4.3 grade-point average (GPA) off the field.[3] Harvey was ranked a three-star recruit and the 39th-best dual-threat quarterback nationally, committing to play college football for the Virginia Cavaliers.[4]
As a true freshman at Virginia in 2019, Harvey was the third quarterback on the depth chart and redshirted, not seeing any playing time.[5] [6] He then entered the NCAA transfer portal and transferred to the UCF Knights.[5] In 2020 at UCF, after transferring to running back he appeared in five games and ran twice for three yards as a backup.[7] He had a chance to be a starter entering the 2021 season, but suffered a torn ACL in preseason camp and missed the entire year.[7]
Harvey returned in 2022 and appeared in 13 games with three starts, being named second-team All-American Athletic Conference (AAC) by Pro Football Network (PFN) while running 118 times for 796 yards and five touchdowns, in addition to 22 receptions for 215 yards.[8] He entered the 2023 season as the team's top running back.[9] Starting on October 7 against Kansas, he had five consecutive games with over 100 rushing yards, the longest streak at the school since 2007.[9] Against 15th-ranked Oklahoma State, he ran for 206 yards and three touchdowns, helping UCF win 45–3 in an upset.[10] He was named a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award as best running back nationally and became the first UCF player to run for over 1,000 yards in a season since 2018. With 1,416 yards & 16 TDs, Harvey had the sixth-highest amount of running yards and rushing touchdowns in the nation. [11]
| Season | Games | Rushing | Receiving | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GP | GS | Att | Yards | Avg | TD | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD | ||
| Virginia Cavaliers | |||||||||||
| 2019 | Redshirt | ||||||||||
| UCF Knights | |||||||||||
| 2020 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | |
| 2021 | DNP (injury—ACL) | ||||||||||
| 2022 | 13 | 3 | 118 | 796 | 6.7 | 5 | 22 | 215 | 9.8 | 0 | |
| 2023 | 13 | 10 | 226 | 1,416 | 6.3 | 16 | 19 | 238 | 12.5 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 12 | 12 | 232 | 1,577 | 6.8 | 22 | 20 | 267 | 13.4 | 3 | |
| Career | 40 | 25 | 579 | 3,792 | 6.5 | 43 | 61 | 720 | 11.8 | 4 | |