Michigan Transfer Singleton set to transfer back home to Rutgers
The Rutgers football team received some good news Sunday as former Michigan outside linebacker Drew Singleton announced his intentions to transfer into the program
The Knight Report spoke with Drew's father, Dwayne Singleton, about his son's decision to transfer back home.
"It means everything to have him close to home again," Dwayne Singleton told TKR. "It is an opportunity of a life time. Back home everyone knows who you are, you are comfortable being close to home and you will have tons of family support too. Rutgers also provides an excellent education and I think a lot of people take it for granted. Drew played pop warner, high school, and now he’s back home again playing football. If you look at some of the Big Ten, SEC schools they all decide to stay home for school. You see them all playing well and they are comfortable doing it for their home teams. Just to bring Drew back home as a parent, it is just a perfect situation."
This past weekend, Rutgers played host to the Singletons on an official visit. Despite not taking an official visit back in high school, Singleton was still very impressed with the program in general.
"It went really well this weekend," said Singleton. "We never took an official visit to Rutgers, even with my oldest son (DJ Singleton). I was very impressed and I think lots of people take Rutgers for granted. There are a lot of kids from New Jersey that just take the program for granted. We didn’t know a whole lot about the school, the people there and the education. It was a big visit and we found out a lot of things about the school we didn’t know. Especially about the life beyond football program, the academics that Rutgers provides and everything that the staff does for the football players. It was all very impressive."
Along with the academic side of things, one of the main things that impressed the Singletons was the entire coaching staff that Rutgers has put together.
"Coach Chris Ash actually recruited my older son a while back when he was at Wisconsin. I've known him for quite some time," he dad said. "He is a good guy and very trustworthy. Also, the staff that he has assembled over there is young and was very impressionable on my sons. Those guys were all very honest and they really took care of us this weekend."
The 6-foot-2, 223-pounder Drew was seeing some time on special teams for the Wolverines after recovering from an injury. During his first year at Michigan he didn't play much due to an ACL injury he suffered late in his high school career, however he is healthy now.
"Drew is 150 percent right now," Singleton said. "He was actually competing for a starting job at Michigan this past season. Right now he’s up to about 6-foot-3, 235-pounds and he should be ready to go right away for Rutgers."
Due to NCAA guidelines, most players usually have to sit out a year when transferring, and since it is Big Ten to Big Ten, they lose an extra year of eligibility, but Singleton is applying for a hardship waiver and TKR has learned that there is a very good chance he will get the waiver. Should he be granted the waiver, the Michigan transfer will have three years of eligibility remaining with the Scarlet Knights.