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Central Florida running back RJ Harvey runs the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine in Indianapolis on March 1. (AP Photo\/Michael Conroy)<\/p>\nIn the fall, when the winds would howl and whip a rainstorm across Orlando, Fla., the retention pond a couple of houses down from the Harvey family home would overflow with the anger of hurricane season. Grass flooded to mush. Dirt flooded to mud.<\/p>\n
In the spring, though, when the water drained, the pond became a bowl roughly 60 yards long and 20 yards wide. They called it \u201cthe ditch\u201d in their 49-house subdivision.<\/p>\n
And this, for a decade, was RJ Harvey\u2019s ditch.<\/p>\n
The ditch birthed dreams. When the boy turned five or six, old enough to replace the tiny football he cradled at night with a real one, Robert Harvey would get off work and walk his son down to throw. The first Saturday morning he registered for flag football, RJ creaked open the door to his parents\u2019 room and woke his dad up much too early, already dressed in his cleats.<\/p>\n
Dad, I\u2019m ready!<\/p>\n
The ditch killed anger. This was where RJ went to answer the mass of coaches who called him too small to play quarterback. Sled pulls. Ladder drills. Parachute sprints. His mother, Juliet, would venture out in the twilight heat to bring her son water as he chased the last bit of light.<\/p>\n
He yearned for a scholarship in high school as a fringe three-star, 5-foot-8 quarterback. He walked on at Central Florida after transferring and switching to running back. As he scrapped for stardom, RJ posted collegiate RB rankings he\u2019d been omitted from on his Instagram story, and then-UCF running backs coach Tim Harris Jr. knew immediately the kid was pissed.<\/p>\n
Even after a 1,577-yard, 22-touchdown senior year at UCF, the lack of attention heading into the NFL draft \u201cbothered\u201d RJ, as Harris said. The running-back-needy Broncos were connected to North Carolina\u2019s Omarion Hampton, Ohio State\u2019s TreVeyon Henderson and about 10 other backs in NFL draft projections. Head coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton passed on all of them to take RJ in the second round last Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had more exposure than RJ had throughout the season,\u201d Robert Harvey said of other top RBs in the class. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why nobody knows who RJ Harvey is. But they\u2019re getting ready to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a monster. He is not a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
In high school, RJ would bring teammate and buddy Christian Leary over to work out. They created football lives for themselves, there in the ditch, talking of the moment they\u2019d get their shot.<\/p>\n
However he would make it happen \u2014 and it happened rough, and gritty, and tearful \u2014 RJ would make it happen, he\u2019d tell Leary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the best part of seeing him in the draft,\u201d Leary reflected. \u201cWe manifested, talked about this, since the ditch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
One varsity game, as Harvey rounded into a standout QB at Florida\u2019s Edgewater High, a handful of coaches were stunned as a 190-pound, muscled-up man sidled his way into the stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarstruck\u201d is how head coach Cameron Duke put it.<\/p>\n
Roy Jones Jr., one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in modern boxing history, had come to watch his cousin play football.<\/p>\n
The family legacy twists deep into Florida soil. Jones and Robert Harvey\u2019s mothers are sisters, and the two grew up seeing each other at least once a year in the summers. After never playing a down of high school football, Robert somehow played four years as a cornerback at Bethune-Cookman, earning Jones\u2019 respect in the process.<\/p>\n
Jones still has Robert listed in his phone as \u201cHard Knock.\u201d The nickname is self-explanatory.<\/p>\n
A generation later, in the summers, Robert would wrangle his kids up to Jones\u2019 ranch in Pensacola. They would frolic and fish and play basketball. And Jones began to see a glint of himself in RJ, a young boy with a \u201cbeautiful smile\u201d but a no-nonsense demeanor, the boxer reflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved that more than anything, because that\u2019s how I was,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s gon\u2019 show it more than he\u2019s gon\u2019 say it, sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most times. When wide receiver Leary transferred into Edgewater before his sophomore year, his new teammates gave him the rundown on RJ.<\/p>\n
Yeah, bro, he\u2019s strictly football.\u00a0He doesn\u2019t have an Instagram.<\/p>\n
What he did have, however, was natural one-cut burst. And a build like a \u201cbrick house,\u201d as former Edgewater track coach Kristopher Oakes put it. And a massive chip glued to his shoulder. He pivoted Edgewater from 0-10 to 9-3 his junior year and had 48 touchdowns as a senior. But along the way, college coaches like Harris \u2014 then coaching at Florida International \u2014 stopped by to suggest the diminutive Harvey play running back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about the speed,\u201d Reed reflected. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about the arm strength. It was about how tall he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever Harvey was, when Jones came down from Pensacola to Edgewater, he realized his cousin was special. The kid didn\u2019t flinch through monsoon or drought. Didn\u2019t flinch at deficits or crowds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has to come from within,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHe was determined. And I recognized that, because I knew how I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Florida running back RJ Harvey runs the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine in Indianapolis on March 1. (AP Photo\/Michael Conroy)<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
Determination landed Harvey a scholarship at Virginia. Determination also nearly drove him out of football.<\/p>\n
He was a three-star recruit out of Florida. UCF and other programs wanted him as a running back. Most everyone pushed him to switch positions. But Harvey did not\u00a0want to be a running back, digging his heels into the dirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just so stuck,\u201d he recalled last week to Broncos media, \u201con thinking that I\u2019m a quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year passed without any snaps at Virginia. He transferred and resigned himself to a position switch. He walked on at UCF, and the heights he and Leary chased in the ditch nearly cratered right there, one foot already out of football.<\/p>\n
I think this might be it for me,\u00a0he told friend Leary.\u00a0I might start looking for a job.<\/p>\n
After a year, he positioned himself for a starting RB role as a sophomore. New UCF head coach Gus Malzahn gushed in meeting rooms over the No. 44 kid he didn\u2019t know the name of yet.<\/p>\n
And then Harvey tore his ACL on a non-contact injury, and started fading.<\/p>\n
Three years of college football. Three carries, total, to show for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seemed like he\u2019s disconnected,\u201d said Harris, then UCF\u2019s running-backs coach. \u201cYou start to get a vibe that, okay, you gotta reel him back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cousin Jones Jr. told Harvey to stay strong, and yet football remained a struggle, even as he earned a role in Harris\u2019 rotation his junior year. Still questioning if he wanted this, as Harris reflected.<\/p>\n
But in October 2022, on the final offensive drive of a one-touchdown game against Cincinnati, Harris went against the grain and pulled starting back Isaiah Bowser for RJ. UCF called for an inside-zone run from the 17-yard line, the Knights down three with 54 seconds to play.<\/p>\n
Harvey took a handoff and paused, slow. Surveying. One. Two.\u00a0Blocks opened up, and Harvey accelerated through a hole, a safety the only man left standing.<\/p>\n
And the kid Leary called \u201cMr. Spin Man\u201d in high school whirled past an outstretched tackle, clinching the game-winning score.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, for our team and for the UCF faithful, RJ Harvey had arrived,\u201d Harris reflected. \u201cAnd he wasn\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
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Central Florida running back RJ Harvey celebrates the two-point conversion against TCU in the fourth quarter on Sept. 14 in Fort Worth, Texas. (AP Photo\/Richard W. Rodriguez)<\/p>\n
Indirectly, that Cincinnati run also catapulted Harvey toward Denver, two 1,400-yard seasons later.<\/p>\n
Innate patience has been his calling card since running read-options at Edgewater. Years of playing quarterback, years of standing behind the line of scrimmage, made Harvey the back he was at UCF. He could analyze protection. He could analyze three levels of reads before they developed. Harvey averaged 6.8 yards per carry in 2024, second-best in the FBS among all backs with at least 200 carries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought maybe he had the best vision in the draft,\u201d Paton said.<\/p>\n
He was Denver\u2019s \u201cpet cat,\u201d as Paton put it, as the Broncos traded back twice in the second round to snag Harvey at pick No. 60. Harris texted Denver wide receivers coach Keary Colbert \u201cgood pick\u201d after Harvey\u2019s selection, and Colbert responded that everyone in the Broncos\u2019 building was excited to get him. Denver quarterback Bo Nix reached out to Kam Martin, Harvey\u2019s RBs coach at UCF in 2023 and 2024, asking: How\u2019s RJ Harvey?<\/p>\n
On paper, Harvey doesn\u2019t seem a hand-in-glove fit with Payton\u2019s preferred versatile, pass-catching type of back, never catching more than 22 passes in any season at UCF. The Broncos, though, \u201cdid their homework,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n
Malzahn\u2019s offenses at UCF have required little of running backs outside of running the ball, and his coaches have pinpointed Harvey as having naturally strong hands. Paton, too, took note of his ability to run a full route tree at UCF\u2019s Pro Day in late March.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t really know that he\u2019s actually a great weapon out of the backfield,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll face as much pressure to deliver as any rookie in the Broncos\u2019 incoming class, with the club\u2019s gaping need for production at running back. Denver, too, will see constant reminders of the rookie backs it could\u2019ve had earlier in the draft, set to square off with the Las Vegas Raiders\u2019 Ashton Jeanty and Los Angeles Chargers\u2019 Omarion Hampton twice in AFC West matchups.<\/p>\n
But the kid from the ditch has responded best, throughout his career, when he\u2019s felt slighted. Amid a breakout year in 2023, Oklahoma State back Ollie Gordon II came to town, the nation\u2019s leading rusher at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat whole week, I was like, RJ, man \u2014 if you want to wake people up, this is the game right where we can, like, change the game,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
He ran for 206 yards, UCF beat Oklahoma State 45-3, and the game was changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey gon\u2019 learn that he\u2019s just like his cousin,\u201d Jones said of Harvey. \u201cHe\u2019s Mr. Unstoppable.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n