7/27/2022 football Edit

LB Drew Singleton looking to come back to Rutgers for one more season

Chris Nalwasky • TheKnightReport

Beat Writer

If there was one position the Rutgers football team could use a little good luck it would be linebacker.

Four-star freshman Moses Walker and hybrid defensive end/linebacker Mohamed Toure were both lost for the 2022 season thanks to injuries during spring practice.

Drew Singleton, who originally declared for the NFL Draft last December, is trying to come back for a sixth year of college football per head coach Greg Schiano at Big Ten Football Media Days.

TKR alluded to the fact of a potential Singleton return for weeks or months now. Singleton’s application for reinstatement was declined, and now Rutgers is appealing the decision. It is now up to the NCAA, again.

"We're hopeful that cooler minds prevail," Schiano said. "We have an appeal in. I'm hopeful he will be able to come back. He wants to seek his graduate degree. I believe that -- he does so many great things. He's a kid from inner city Newark who's overcome a lot. The guy is trying to do the right thing. I hope that we're able to do the right thing and get him back, but we're waiting to hear."

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After going 5-7, Singleton signed with an agent and didn’t plan to return to the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers was a late addition to the bowl lineup as it played Wake Forest in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. On just over a week’s notice, Rutgers accepted the bid and so did Singleton, who wound up hurting his ankle in the contest.

That affected his Pro Day preparation, but he recovered in time to participate in March ahead of April’s 2021 NFL Draft that saw Isaih Pacheco and Bo Melton get selected in the later rounds.

In 2020, Schiano’s first year back with the Scarlet Knights, Elorm Lumor was able to get a waiver to come back after going through the entire draft process including the draft itself.

Rutgers hopes Singleton will get that chance. A basketball player who signs with an agent can also return to college. In 13 games last autumn, Singleton played in 13 games with nine starts. He totaled 59 tackles with four for a loss to go along with a sack and a fumble recovery. He made four stops with a sack in the Gator Bowl and posted double-digit tackles against Penn State and Indiana.

Training camp begins the first week of August.

"Drew declared for the NFL draft in December, and then we got that late bowl bid, and on eight days' notice, Drew came back and played," Schianos said. "A lot of guys that were NFL prospects -- not a lot of them, but some of them decided not to play in the game, and I understood why, with only eight days to get ready and risk of injury and those things. But Drew came back and plays for Rutgers. Unfortunately in that game, he got an ankle injury.

"So picture on January 1st he's walking around in a boot, and this is supposed to be the time he's getting ready for the NFL draft. It really hurt his development and getting prepared. On top of that, COVID, every NFL executive that I talked to, COVID increased draft boards by about 30 to 40 players. So now all of a sudden, those guys that were late-round draft picks, they became priority free agents. Then the priority free agents became lower free agents. So what happened to those guys that were just lower free agents? They didn't have an opportunity. That's what Drew was."