QB battle still unsettled for Rutgers, no timetable to name starter
CHICAGO, ILL. -- Coming out of spring practice, no starting quarterback was named for Game One of the 2018 season for the Rutgers football team. After the Scarlet-White game, head coach Chris Ash mentioned that the battle between true freshman Artur Sitkowski, sophomore Johnathan Lewis, and redshirt senior Giovanni Rescigno will extend through offseason workouts and into training camp.
On Monday afternoon at Big Ten Football Media Day, Ash said there was no change and no update in that plan.
“We still have not settled on a quarterback for this year,” the third year head coach said in his press conference. “I feel great about the room that we have.”
Besides at quarterback, the Scarlet Knights have a bunch of starting jobs still up for grabs. However, quarterback is and will always be the biggest and focal point. Every team needs a good signal caller that can make plays on the field but who is also a good leader as well.
“It's really everything,” Ash added. “We have several position battles that we have to settle when we go to training camp, but none more important than the quarterback. If you look at the NFL, high school, college football, doesn't matter, if you don't have a quarterback that is productive and takes care of the ball and can distribute to the other players, you don't have a chance to win. So it's everything for our program right now to be able to get that done.”
During the spring, Sitkowski, who enrolled early, performed well and seemed to have jumped ahead and passed the other two main competitors. But nothing is set in stone right now and the battle, again, will play out for a few weeks yet.
“We don't have a timetable set on it, sooner than later. We're not going to take all of training camp, but we're not going to do it after a few days either,” Ash said. “It's when we feel it's the right decision, we're comfortable with it, the other players believe in it, then we'll make that decision. We obviously want to do it sooner than later, but there is no set date that we'll do it by X and X date. It is an important decision, and we'll let it play out for a little bit in training camp
Rescigno started the spring game as a nod to being the veteran and having the most experience out of anybody on the roster at the position. That’ll likely continue for the start of fall camp as well. It won’t be a surprise that even if Sitkowski fares the best in camp, that somewhat watches from the sidelines in the early going.
Nonetheless, Ash talked about what it's going to take for a signal caller to jump ahead and be the starter.
“We just need to find an individual that we can trust and can do the things we want him to do,” Ash said. "...Really, what we're looking for is a guy who earns the trust of all of our players. The players elevate their play because of the guy who's at quarterback. We're not neccessarilty looking for the quarterback that's going to make a lot of plays, he can take care of the football, execute the calls that are made, and he can get the ball in the hands of other playmakers on our offense and give them a chance to do something.
"I like our quarterback room. It's stronger than it's been in the previous two years. Gio has played for us and is going into his senior year and we're hoping he can have his best year, but we also have a couple young guys that are pushing for time, too. It'll be fun to watch it all sort out."