6/10/2021 football Edit

Rutgers Football freshman TE Victor Konopka shows out at spring game

Richie O'Leary • TheKnightReport

Publisher

One of the biggest surprises that most fans came away with from the 2021 Rutgers Football spring game was the fact that the tight ends who were almost non-existent last year combined for 158 receiving yards in the game.

Out of all those tight ends, second year freshman tight end Victor Konopka showed off some unique skills as both a blocker up front and a receiver down the field racking up three receptions on three targets for 55 yards.

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“It was a great night, the whole team did really well,” Konopka said in his post spring game press conference. “Personally I had a few big catches, but I was just very excited to play with my team and to showcase to everybody all the hard work that we’ve been doing and to show what we are capable of. It was just a great night overall.”

The Kinnelnon, New Jersey native originally joined the Rutgers Football program after only playing one year of high school ball at Blair Academy, as he was previously a division one basketball recruit and even committed to the United States Military Academy for hoops before doing a postgrad year.

“I feel very comfortable, we put in so much work in the spring and all year. Coach Nunzio (Campanile), coach (Adam) Weber and all the tight ends have been really helpful,” said Konopka. “I’ve been learning so much coming from a basketball background, like toughness, improving physically and mentally, and learning new schemes, techniques. The coaches did a great job implementing all that and I have great teammates surrounding me to help me learn too.”

Konopka credits the coaching staff and some of the veterans on the team for helping him learn the game and make the transition over from basketball.

“I’ll be honest when I first got here I didn’t know much about the game when I got here,” he said. “Coach (Greg) Schiano does such a good job of describing the game and that goes down to the assistant coaches too, like coach Nunz I go one on one with him basically with everything. Then I refer back to Jovani (Haskins), Matt Alaimo and they are great resources to learn from. Just learning the steps of a mid zone scheme, inside zone scheme and just toughness really, that is a big part of it. Coach Schiano works us both mentally and physically all the time and I feel like that’s a big component of what I’ve improved on.”

The transition from basketball player to tight end on the gridiron is a tale as old as time, as some of the top tight ends in the NFL recently have made the move such as Antonio Gates, Darren Fells, Jimmy Graham, Julius Thomas and others.

Konopka sees the similarities between the two sports and thinks that he has made the transition pretty well so far.

“Coming from basketball, the footwork is there, the quickness and speed are all there,” “It all really translates really well to the field, basketball has a lot of great athletes and obviously transitioning from sport to sport is not always easy, but I feel like I’ve transitioned pretty well. Again the coaches do a pretty good job with the physical part of it and that is the biggest thing with me that I had to learn, but overall I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job of that.”