A transfer success story: Former Tennessee RB Jalen Hurd making most of new opportunity, new position at Baylor
By Rick Stavig
Published:
Jalen Hurd was rolling in early 2016.
The 6-4, 240-pound junior tailback for the Tennessee Volunteers had just run for 95 yards in an epic 38-28 win over Florida, breaking an 11-game losing streak to their arch-rivals. Following that 26-carry performance, Hurd had was at 2,552 career rushing yards, just 527-yards from breaking Travis Henry’s record at Tennessee. The crazy thing was that he wasn’t even halfway through his third season in Knoxville.
Then the wheels fell off.
He was benched the following week after celebrating a TD against Georgia, and missed the next game against Texas A&M due to a concussion. Two weeks later, Hurd announced he would be leaving the program immediately and transferring. Essentially 4 games from setting a school record for rushing yards, Hurd was finished. At Tennessee, at least.
Vols fans, it’s safe to say, didn’t take that very well. The ridicule online was predictably vicious. And from the outside looking in, the timing was particularly quizzical. Why not just wait until the end of the season? He was essentially abandoning his teammates in the middle of the season, wasn’t he?
It came down to the way he was being used, which was, essentially, as the ultimate workhorse back, and Hurd wondered how much longer his body could take such a beating. By the end of the Florida game he had accumulated a whopping 558 carries in just 30 games as a Vol, in addition to another 67 receptions out of the backfield. Plus, the bulk of his carries were between the tackles, right into the teeth of the defense, more often than not without a lead blocker.
Matt Hayes of Bleacher Report and our own Saturday Down South indicated that Hurd went to the staff early in the season and asked to be used differently, with more work on the perimeter, but to no avail.
There was a falling out between Hurd and the staff, and that was that.
The Vols moved on with future NFL star Alvin Kamara and eventual 6th-round pick John Kelly, and Hurd transferred to Baylor, where he switched to wide receiver.
So, how has the transition gone? Pretty well. After sitting out last season, Hurd leads 3-1 Baylor in receptions (22), receiving yards (311), TD receptions (2) and total yards from scrimmage (342). In the pass-happy Big 12, he’s fifth in receptions and sixth in receiving yards – not too bad for a guy who was a power back in the SEC not long ago.
Baylor coach Matt Rhule likes what he has seen.
“I’m really pleased” Rhule said during this week’s Big 12 coaches teleconference. “He’s one of the most competitive guys I’ve ever been around and he’s turning himself into a fine receiver.”
From the film I’ve studied, Hurd certainly looks like he has a bright future at WR. That’s not to say he’s anywhere close to a finished product, because it’s very evident that he’s still new to the position. Learning the nuances of a position like WR is difficult, and it can take years for even the most athletically gifted to master it. With that said, what he’s been able to do in the last year is very impressive.
From a purely physical standpoint, there aren’t many receivers who are more imposing.
Here’s a very brief scouting report of what I’ve seen from his film so far:
He has a great frame for the position at 6-4, 217 pounds. It’s obvious he’s a high-level athlete with great physical potential from a strength/speed/quickness perspective. You can tell a lot about his potential simply by the way he moves. Quick feet, improved short-area quickness, lateral mobility, burst, change of direction skills, balance, etc.
Playing mostly out of the slot, he has been limited with his routes, more often than not running slants, flats and the occasional wheel. He’s still coming along as a route runner, which is understandable given his late start. He’s stiff in and out of his breaks and doesn’t always sink his hips. He still is learning how to read coverages.
Hurd has struggled to consistently gain separation against press coverage, but he can find holes in zone. He’s shown decent hands but still is coming along with consistency, showing the occasional drop. He’s a very physical, high-effort blocker, and shows the same kind of tenacity with the ball in his hands as a receiver that he did as a tailback, that is, he seeks contact instead of avoiding it. He tracks the deep ball well and shows a lot of body control and balance with the ball in the air, and has done a nice job of working back to the QB on broken plays.
Overall, he’s a gifted athlete with the raw skills to play the position at a high level, but he needs time to develop. For this to happen, he needs reps, and a lot of them.
“I think the biggest thing for him is just to continue getting reps, to continue getting comfortable” Rhule said. “He needs time and reps in games at receiver to really develop.”
Despite the stellar play, many will still wonder: Did he make the right decision by moving from RB to WR? After all, it wasn’t too long ago that many thought he could have been one of the first RBs off the board of the 2017 NFL Draft had he stuck it out in Knoxville.
In my professional opinion, absolutely.
I don’t think he had much of a future at RB in the NFL. That’s not a knock on his rushing ability or what he accomplished at Tennessee, but I don’t think he was going to make it at that position in the NFL. He had size, yes, but his length worked against him with his upright rushing style. He also didn’t show elite level lateral quickness or burst at that weight in my opinion, and the number of miles under his tires would have made many leery of how much longer he would have been able to last as an every down back.
Not only will the move to WR add years to his career, but it’s physically a better fit, especially after losing weight and dropping to 217.
“He’s natural at WR, but he hasn’t done it for a real long time, so a lot of things that come up are new to him, and he has to work through them” Rhule said. “But he’s got such a tremendous work ethic that I think he’ll find a way.”
And let’s not act like his RB experience shouldn’t be taken advantage of now and in the future. While Hurd isn’t looking for 25-30 carries a game anymore, you’d be foolish not to capitalize on his diverse skill set in carrying the ball in some capacity, something that Baylor has slowly started to do in recent weeks, working him into their rushing attack with a few carries, including 4 last week against Kansas.
“I think he was a tremendous tailback, that’s why we’ve used him there a little here and there, but he’s also a tremendous receiver” Rhule said. “He’s just one of those gifted guys I think can be elite at both. I think as he goes onto the next level, he’ll be a guy who gives teams some flexibility to be able to move back and forth and create matchups in the NFL.”
When scouts look at Hurd after the season, they’ll know that he’s very much a work in progress at the receiver position, but they’ll be salivating over his physical size and ability.
In the NFL, potential often outweighs everything else, and Hurd’s potential, not just as a WR but as a multipurpose weapon, will make him a very intriguing prospect indeed.
One way or another, the reclamation project that is Jalen Hurd has worked out just fine.
Rick Stavig, who played at Ole Miss and Shippensburg University, is the owner of SE Scouting. A veteran scout, he specializes in the NFL Draft and recruiting coverage.
