Silver And Black Pride
The Las Vegas Raiders are widely expected to have one or two roster spots at wide receiver up for grabs during training camp, giving undrafted free agent signing Corey Rucker from Arkansas State a chance to fill out the depth chart. It helps that he’s tied with Cian Slone as the Raiders’ highest-paid UDFA in the 2026 class, per Spotrac.
Rucker had an interesting college career, spending the 2020 and 2021 seasons with the Red Wolves before transferring to South Carolina for a year and then returning to Arkansas State. He was productive during his five years in Jonesboro, collecting 255 catches for 4,069 yards and 27 touchdowns in 59 games. However, he had just one catch for a 52-yard touchdown with the Gamecocks before suffering a foot injury that limited him to just two games and led to his return to ASU.
As a prospect, the three-time All-Sun Belt selection didn’t get invited to the NFL Combine, but turned heads at his pro day by weighing in at nearly 210 pounds and running a 4.38-second 40-yard dash. He also showed off some impressive explosion numbers, recording a 37-inch vertical and a 10-foot-6 broad jump.
With that in mind, let’s flip on the tape and see what the Arkansas State product can bring to the table.
What stands out about Rucker’s route running is that he uses his speed as a threat to create separation on curls. He knows that cornerbacks are worried about getting beaten over the top when lining up against him and uses that to his advantage.
Here, he’s on the single-receiver side of a three-by-one formation while the defense runs Cover 3. That puts the corner on an island, where the corner is in man coverage while the rest of the unit plays zone. With no safety help, the corner doesn’t want to give up a big play to the speedy wide receiver and plays off coverage.
Post-snap, Rucker sells the go route by pushing vertical or releasing hard off the line of scrimmage and keeping his shoulders down before hitting the brakes on the curl route. That gets the cornerback to open his hips and begin defending the vertical route. So, when Rucker pulls up on the curl, the cornerback is in an awkward position and ends up slipping before being able to drive on the route.
While it’s only a yard or two on this rep specifically, the wideout also does a good job of working back to the quarterback to maximize his separation. All of that leads to a fourth-down conversion late in the game to keep Arkansas State’s hopes alive.
We’ll get another look at a curl route from Rucker on the clip above. Again, he sells the vertical route well by accelerating off the line of scrimmage and keeping his shoulders down. One subtle addition that he does here is veering toward the sideline at about the 35-yard line to really make it look like a fade route.
That gets the...
