By Ethan Herzog
One year ago, Ohio’s Mr. Football Award recipient Corey Kiner committed to Louisiana State University. Fast forward to a year later and he’s coming home to play just three miles from his alma mater, Roger Bacon High School, at the University of Cincinnati.
Coming into the 2022 season, the position of runningback has been up in the air, since junior Jerome Ford committed to the NFL draft earlier this year, which has left some big shoes to fill.
Now, the running back core for Cincinnati is still packed to the brim with talent, featuring names like Ethan Wright and Charles McClelland fighting to earn a spot as RB1 heading into next season. And now with Kiner in the mix, the fight is going to get a lot more interesting.
In his first season, Kiner posted 324 yards off of 79 attempts and had two touchdowns as well, those stats being good enough to make him LSU’s second-best rusher behind junior Tyrion Davis-Price. Kiner also had a 39.5% broken tackle rate in his only season as a tiger.
Prior to LSU Kiner was the 4th best runningback in the state of Ohio, posting just over 8,500 total yards of offense, and sits at third-best among running backs in touchdowns scored all-time in OHSAA history. Coming out of high school, he received a four-star distinction on 247sports.com as well.
Up to this point, Kiner is the highest-rated recruit UC has ever brought in at running back, and only the second four-star recruit, next to quarterback Evan Prater, who is also battling for a starting spot in the quarterback room, along with Eastern Michigan transfer Ben Bryant, who played under Fickell in 2019 at Cincinnati.
The Bearcats open the season away at Arkansas on September 3, 2022, where we will see who has won the honor of RB1.