The last time you saw Rutgers, the Scarlet Knights were losing a combined 224-0 to the top four teams in the Big Ten East and finishing 0-9 in the conference, 2-10 overall. The first few days of the offseason have not been excellent, either.
Rutgers had 3 QBs transfer away in 3 days
Does this change much? Nope. Is it still kind of sad? Sure.
Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports
On Monday, word came out that junior quarterback Hayden Rettig would transfer from the program. On Wednesday morning, another junior QB, Chris Laviano, said the same. And by Wednesday evening, redshirt freshman QB Michael Dare was following suit. That’s three quarterback transfers in three days from Chris Ash’s program, which just finished the 2016 season 128th out of 128 FBS teams in yards per passing attempt.
We shouldn’t make too big a deal out of this. Sophomore Giovanni Rescigno seized the starter’s job from Laviano down the stretch this year. Rettig made five career appearances and one start at Rutgers, after coming over a few years ago as a four-star transfer from LSU. Dare never played at all.
So Rutgers is not in drastically worse shape than it was a few days ago — which is to say it already wasn’t in good shape, and these transfers don’t make things that much worse. When players transfer, it’s often because they weren’t getting opportunities to play anyway. It’s a part of the sport. The three transfers here all committed to Kyle Flood’s staff, not Ash’s.
Alas, three QB transfers in three days is decidedly not great. The Knights should still have Rescigno around next year, but his top backup is now Zach Allen, a TCU transfer who wasn’t a full-time QB until this season. (He was 1-of-12 passing for the year.) Rutgers kept eight QBs on the roster this season, but it looks like just three scholarship options remain. There’s one QB commit currently in RU’s class of 2017.
Times were already bad. Now Rutgers is a few QBs lighter, and times are still bad.
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