Tag: Ja’Quinden Jackson

Arkansas’ Ja’Quinden Jackson gives cheerleaders look after TD

Checking out cheerleaders was not in the Arkansas playbook, right?

Arkansas’ Ja’Quinden Jackson had two touchdowns in the first half on Thursday as the Razorbacks were rolling against Arkansas Pine-Bluff.

After a 46-yard TD run, Jackson took the time to check out the cheerleaders.

Nothing like a cupcake game to get in shape.

Can Ja’Quinden Jackson be Rocket Sanders circa 2022 for the Razorbacks?

Ja’Quinden Jackson knows Rocket Sanders’ story. He more or less lived it for Utah last year.

Former Utah running back Ja’Quinden Jackson is now current Arkansas running back Ja’Quinden Jackson. In his first spring with the Razorbacks, he’s ready to embrace the team’s No. 1 role in the backfield.

The senior earned that role with the Utes last year, running for 797 yards, a team high. But he also ran for just 4.9 yards per carry, down from 6.8 a year before, and four touchdowns, down from nine as a sophomore.

Jackson said the workload was not the problem with Utah. A nagging injury limited his effectiveness.

“It was a low ankle sprain, then it went. To my tendon in my foot,” Jackson said. “And my tendon in my foot kind of came off the bone. It was something that I really couldn’t do. Like, I had to let it heal.”

Because he missed the Utes’ bowl game and entered the portal, some fans developed a poor perception of him. The story was similar for former Arkansas running back Rocket Sanders, whose 2022 was also superior to his 2023 before he hit the transfer portal.

Jackson isn’t looking to replace Sanders per se, but if he can run for 1,000 yards or more and come near double-digit touchdowns in his first season with the Razorbacks, Arkansas football will be more likely to turn around last year’s 4-8 season.

“People talk about it from the outside looking in,” Jackson said. “They don’t really know what I had to go through last season for me to get those 700 yards and score touchdowns.”

Now, he’s ready to prove himself all over again.

Arkansas football lands top running back transfer in portal

Arkansas football got a major boost to the running back room on Friday in the transfer portal.

The transfer portal taketh, but it can also giveth.

On Friday, the running back room got a little better, as Utah transfer Ja’Quinden Jackson chose Arkansas as his destination.

 

On3.com tabs him as the No. 5 running back transfer and the No. 109 overall transfer this offseason.

The 6’2, 228-pounder rushed 161 times for 797 yards and 4 touchdowns in 2023 to go along with 9 catches for 53 yards. His 129 yards were a career high against Baylor last September.

Jackson joins a running back room that includes Isaiah Augustave, Rashod Dubinion and Dominique Johnson.

Of course, it was made emptier with the departures of Raheim ‘Rocket’ Sanders and AJ Green to the portal in December.

Sanders has since committed to South Carolina, while Green has yet to announce a destination.