2/16/2021 football Edit

Rutgers Football OC Sean Gleeson talks 2020, QB development and recruiting

Richie O'Leary • TheKnightReport

Publisher

It's been nearly a year since Rutgers Football Offensive Coordinator Sean Gleeson last spoke to the media, but on Tuesday afternoon he spoke with the Rutgers media talking about the offensive improvements in his first year with the Scarlet Knights.

“We had some good momentum on the heels of the progress that we made this past year," Gleeson said in his video press conference. "We are just trying to keep that thing going in the same direction."

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One of the position groups that saw the biggest improvements under Sean Gleeson was the quarterbacks. The group was led by Noah Vedral, who finished the year with 1,253 passing yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. He also ran for 193 yards and another score.

“Coach Gleeson will not be starting a QB controversy in this phone call,” Gleeson said. “He did play well in moments and that was really helpful. We needed that win in Maryland and obviously at Purdue as well. He played great when his number was called. Noah is the starting quarterback right now, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t evaluating it every single day. Whether it’s weight room or spring football, I’m excited to get some reps in at spring football with these guys.”

Gleeson also went on to speak about Artur Sitkowski's play from the 2020 season and how this offseason will be big for all of his quarterbacks.

“I thought Art progressed really well," said Gleeson. "One of the things that will be new to him, as opposed to for Noah for instance, is that Noah has played in a no huddle offense in his career before and this was kind of Art’s first pass at that. I think leadership is the biggest offseason goal out of all of our guys in the QB room and how do we lead our teammates. The second most important thing is how well do we operate our offense. That’s all the no huddle functioning, we are watching the cutups like everyone else in the country right now and we wish we could have a few back. Particularly in the end of the year, Art was getting the reigns and you can see a certain difference in the way certain plays were snapped, that we have to see an improvement on for our offense to be successful.”

Speaking of quarterbacks, Rutgers didn't land a scholarship QB prospect in the 2021 class, but they did land preferred walk-on in Gavin Rupp out of Florida.

Gleeson went on to speak about not landing a scholarship kid and how difficult it is to keep QBs on the roster during the Transfer Portal era.

“Coach makes all the calls in recruiting, as far as roster management," he said. "I’m thankful for that as he has many years of experience in college but obviously managed the roster really effectively. You have to juggle a lot of balls, scholarship allotment in the COVID world where the rules are changing everyday, how many initials and how many scholarships we have. I’ve been around a couple of different places now and talked to some contemporaries about scholarship management at the quarterback position and the tough news is you can kind of read between the lines at some other places in the country, it’s hard to be a backup in college football with the portal. Everyone wants to play, so the idea of carrying four to five scholarship quarterbacks on your roster, those days are over. I think we have an advantage in that regard because we do a great job of recruiting our own players. We treat them great, feed them really well, and I think they are being coached hard and effectively. So we are going to retain a lot of our guys. I’ll be hard pressed to say that we are going to take two in a year. I believe, to my understanding we will take one a year, but it could mean we skip a year and take preferred walk-on to add some depth. The good news is we treat all those guys the same in our room. They all get developed, they all get coached and they all feel apart of it.”

Along with improved quarterback play, Rutgers also got some big games out of their wide receiver corp led by Phil Steele Third Team All-Big Ten wideout Bo Melton, who will return for his fifth season the banks in 2021.

"We are especially happy to have Bo back and I think coach (Greg Schiano) has mentioned it in some other conversations with you guys, he's just such a tremendous practice player," Gleeson said. "You know when you have a guy that is a leader on the practice field and in the weight room, it’s so easy for those guys that are trying to develop and further their careers to have an example like that to follow. Kind of like a North Star to a certain degree. He’s extremely respectful and extremely hard working."

Gleeson credits receivers coach Tiquan Underwood as a big reason for the wide receivers turnaround, especially the season that Melton had where he finished with 638 receiving yards and six touchdown receptions.

“I’m very thankful that Tiquan Underwood has become his right hand man,” said Gleeson. “Because the synergy between those two is just really clear to see. Just thrilled to have him back and I love being around him whenever I have the chance to be around him. And he’s a productive player too. It’d be one thing if he was a productive citizen and didn’t make any plays, we’d still value him, but the plays that he makes combined with the type of kid he is, it’s just thrilling.”

This past season the Scarlet Knights made the jump from 273.1 yards per game in 2019 to 339.1 yards per game in 2020. However coach Gleeson wants to ignore the background noise and push for an even stronger offense In 2021.

“To be quite honest I just want to win,” Gleeson said. “Whatever we have to do to win. I know yards per play, points per possession and I like the statistics as much as anyone else, but we just have to keep winning. What that means is and coach always talks about it, we just need to have a bigger number than the other team. We are going to play complimentary football. I think we have really smart coaches and smart kids, the points are going to come. We just have to stay the course, but ultimately we are just trying to win games in this really tough league and ultimately take Rutgers to another level. There is a human nature battle right now, we did some good things, but in the grand scheme of things there is a lot of room for improvement. So who do you want to listen to? Everyone is telling you, you’re back for a second year coach Gleeson and they haven’t had retention in your position or you scored more points in the Big Ten then they have in a long time. If you listen to those things, then you don’t take steps forward or have the growth that we want. I’m pretty sure coach Schiano is going to head our team in the right direction as it relates to work and we just got to follow his lead and get this thing going.”