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Boyd, Whaley named to watch list for top running back award

FAYETTEVILLE — Rakeem Boyd and Devwah Whaley were placed on the Doak Walker Award watch list on Wednesday by the PwC SMU Athletic Forum.

The award is presented annually to the nation’s top college running back and is named after three-time All-America RB Doak Walker.

It is the only major collegiate award that requires all candidates to be in good academic standing and on schedule to graduate within one year of other students of the same classification.

Arkansas is the only school in the SEC with multiple student-athletes on the initial Doak Walk Award Watch List. The running back duo joins senior defensive lineman McTelvin Agim as preseason selections, as he was named to the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list on July 15.

Boyd, a junior from Houston, Texas, recorded a team-best 734 yards on 123 attempts last season in his first year with the Razorbacks.

He averaged 6 yards per carry with 61.2 per game, scoring twice, while leading the team in all-purpose yards with 899. Boyd put together three games of 100+ yards rushing in three contests, all against conference foes, with a season-best 113 yards against Vanderbilt on Oct. 27.

Whaley, from Beaumont, Texas, makes his second appearance on the watch list after rushing for 368 yards and two touchdowns as a junior in 2018.

He notched the top rushing game of the season last year by a Razorback with 165 yards and a TD on 26 carries at Colorado State on Sept. 8.

Whaley enters his senior campaign as Arkansas’ active career leading rusher with 1,529 yards and ranks fourth on the receptions list with 22 receptions for 279 yards.

The PwC SMU Athletic Forum Board of Directors will name 10 semifinalists in November, and three finalists on Nov. 20.

The committee will cast a second vote beginning Dec. 2 to determine the recipient, which will be announced live on the Home Depot College Football Awards on Thursday, Dec. 12, in Atlanta, Georgia, on ESPN.

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SECMD19: Arkansas’ Chad Morris at SEC Media Days on Wednesday

Razorbacks’ second-year coach Chad Morris at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, on Wednesday.

SECMD19: Scoota Harris at SEC Media Days on Wednesday

Razorbacks’ senior linebacker De’Jon “Scoota” Harris at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, on Wednesday.

SECMD19: Arkansas’ Devwah Whaley at SEC Media Days

Razorbacks’ senior running back Devwah Whaley at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, on Wednesday.

SECMD19: Arkansas’ Sosa Agim on Wednesday morning

Razorbacks’ senior defensive lineman McTelvin “Sosa” Agim at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, on Wednesday.

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Burrow one of most important of QBs at Media Days this year

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Nine schools are bringing quarterbacks to SEC Media Days this year and they are all important, but what LSU is wanting to do with Joe Burrow this year may make him one of more critical ones.

“This is Joe’s type of offense,” Tigers coach Ed Orgeron said after saying they have installed a spread offense.

You can be excused if you take a skeptical view. A lot of folks are right there with you. We’ve heard it before, right?

“This style of offense is the offense I have been doing since I was 14 or 15,” Burrow said. “No huddle, get the ball out fast. So that is kind of what I was comfortable with, and I had to get comfortable doing the other style of offense last year.”

We lost count of how many times Les Miles promised to open up the offense and have the quarterback do more things, other than to recruit some pretty good dual-threat quarterbacks, then force them into a traditional pro-style offense.

This time, Orgeron claims he means it.

“It’s not a threat, I promise you that” he said. “We are going to run the spread offense. It’s in … it’s in the playbook.”

To be honest, just about everybody has to do that these days or risk losing in the recruiting game. Ask Bret Bielema how falling on your face there catches up to you with the fan base unless you’re winning double-digit games every year.

Shoot, even Jim Harbaugh has gone to it with Michigan and that may be more shocking than LSU spreading it out.

Maybe the biggest key is we’ll apparently see Burrow turned loose more this year because backup Myles Brennan is healthy this year. He wasn’t last year and Orgeron didn’t want to get Burrow hurt.

“We could not run Joe as much as we wanted to last year,” he said. “Myles Brennan was hurt … now Myles Brennan is healthy. We’re going to do a lot more running with joe this year.”

While Orgeron would probably like to see Burrow do something other than try to run over people, though.

“If we let him, he would run into a brick wall,” he said of Burrow’s running style. “He has a linebacker mentality.

And it doesn’t sound like Burrow is changing.

“If you slide, more people get hurt than when they don’t,” was Burrows. “If you don’t slide, you will be really sore, but I don’t think you are going to get really hurt. You see when people slide, and someone will dive into their ankle or twist their ankle or twist their knee so that’s part of it.”

But there’s another solution for him.

“You also want to be smart and get out of bounds if there is a 250-pound linebacker chasing you down who is faster, stronger, and bigger than you, so yeah I will get out of bound in that situation,” Burrow said.

Which may be good news for Orgeron and LSU fans.

That simply proves he’s not insane.

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