Montreal's Antwan Raymond, a star at NCAA's Rutgers University, is one of Canada's best-kept sports secrets

Antwan Raymond slides behind a desk in an office at Rutgers University’s athletic complex and settles in for a Zoom interview sporting grey sweats and a scarlet hoodie with a Nike swoosh near the right collarbone.

It’s shiny and a tad baggy but still doesn’t hide Raymond’s spherical deltoids and bulbous biceps, body armour he’s been building since he first enrolled at Dalbé Viau High School in Lachine, Que., six years ago.

On the eve of his third season at Rutgers, Raymond, a 5-foot-11, 205-pound running back, wears team-issued gear as comfortably as he does the no-nonsense expression of somebody skilled at blotting out distractions to focus on a task.

Last season Raymond, who grew up in the Montreal suburb of Pierrefonds, rushed for 1,241 yards, which ranked third in the Big Ten, the NCAA’s most competitive conference, while his 15 total touchdowns tied for third. Those numbers earned him a spot on the All-Big Ten second team, and made him a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award, which honours the NCAA’s best running back.

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Raymond enters the 2026 season with even bigger goals, like helping Rutgers improve on last year’s 5-7 record, and propelling the program into the Big Ten’s upper echelon, alongside name-brand programs like Ohio State. Doing his part means boosting his football IQ, which will mean treating that afternoon’s position group meeting less like a mundane chalk talk than a for-credit class.

“I wanted to become a smarter football player,” says Raymond, a human resources management major who earned Academic All-Big Ten honours last year. “Mastering our offence, understanding defences, just slowing the