This season, Rutgers will have the services of fifth-year senior Damon Mitchell, who enrolled this January as a grad transfer from Arkansas. The New Jersey Cedar Creek High School alum will play wide receiver this season at Rutgers after playing receiver, quarterback and running back at Arkansas.
“My heart is going to remain at quarterback, but as far as talent wise. I do have a gift and I am athletic enough to play receiver,” Mitchell said last week. “So whatever it is, I just want to get on the football field and play.”
Mitchell has also talked with head coach Chris Ash talked about potentially being used as a quarterback as well this coming season.
“We may use him at quarterback in certain packages but he's going to be a wide receiver for us,” Ash said of Mitchell. “Why was Damon an attractive individual and such an important get for us? It's more about his leadership ability. Obviously, we lost a lot of players at the wide receiver position. We feel with Damon, his brother Ahmir [Mitchell], Janarion [Grant] coming back, Bo Melton and the receivers coming in, we will have a completely different looking wide receiver group. But they needed leadership and Damon brings leadership to that room.
“You talk about player-run practices or going out throwing and catching and running routes, he leads that group to get those things done. In the weight room, he's a leader in the weight room. He just got on campus and he is already a player-elected leader of the wide receiver group, so that's the type of impact that we wanted by getting Damon Mitchell into our program.”
Ash and Mitchell have a long-standing relationship dating back to Ash’s time as an assistant coach at Wisconsin and Arkansas as he was Mitchell’s lead recruiter at both places.
“He is awesome,” Mitchell said of Ash. "He gave me a call the other day just asking how my transition was, if I need anything, how are my academics, how is my family back home. That was something at my last school that you got a little bit, but not nearly as frequent and not nearly as early as I did here. After signing day, it was like ‘we got you. We’ll see you around.’ But here, I am doing homework in my living room and I see the head knight calling me asking me if I am good. He said he is always here for me if I need to talk or anything.”
This season will also have deeper meaning as Mitchell will get to line up at the same position as his brother.
“We only had one year in high school together and he is nowhere near the athlete he is now that he was then. He was tripping over his feet and growing into his body,” Mitchell said of his younger brother. “So to watch him flourish in the Midwest over the Rivals showcases and camps and on film was a pretty cool thing to see. He watched me play this sport from when he was knee-high and it is cool now that he is my size, my weight and he can actually control his hands and is not tripping over his feet. I am excited for what he can do. Maybe me going to quarterback, I will get a chance to throw him the rock a little bit. It is going to be cool.”
Mitchell also figures to play a key role in helping Ash continue to rebuild the Rutgers program.
“He's been part of the turnaround program. Arkansas was 3-9 his first year there,” Ash said. “Next year there, they went to a Bowl game; they were in a Bowl game every year he was there. He knows what it takes. He's seen it, he's done it and he's constantly talking to our players about what it's going to take to get that done.”
