Grabbing the QB brass ring at Rutgers
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Like most carousels, it’s often just out of reach
Related OTB post on this topic: Does the Lonergan start impact Rutgers’ “developmental program” image?
After the news broke on Monday that Dylan Lonergan was named the starter for the UMass game, Andrew considered whether the decision was a knock on Rutgers as, in Greg Schiano’s words, a “developmental program” (link above). And the comments about the choice to pass on AJ Surace were plentiful, maybe more than we’ve seen on any post recently. First, the naysayers:
AzKnight:Huge disappointment. Surace deserves a shot. Wonder if Schiano’s 51% of the vote override OC’s preference.
BobR: 3, 2, 1…AJ announces he is entering the portal.
DieHardRUFan:First bad decision of the year. If it’s close you give it to the guy that’s been with you for three years. Lonergan just got benched on a horrible BC team by a really good coach on OB. This is how you lose locker rooms..Every man for himself when stuff like this happens. Now if DL was head a [sic] shoulders better different story but no one has said that’s the case. Mid year AJ will be starting and we’ll hear we feel we need a spark. GS has never been able to manage the qb spot correctly.
dantes inferno purgatory:Mid year AJ will be starting and we’ll hear we feel we need a spark. Anyone who’s a longtime Rutgers fan knew that already. Not surprised.
davemar425:this is disappointing, indictment on surace and the coaching staff, lonergan gives me kyle bolin vibes.
green1us: The ability to recruit high school QBs has just gotten harder for this school. Now for fans it’s looking towards the portal every year or other year for an answer there.
But, not everyone was down on this move:
NJmojo:I’m now on the Lonergan band wagon. Now lets go win some games!!!
dantes inferno purgatory:Given Ciarrocca’s track record with QBs, I’m going to give this decision the benefit of the doubt. (From Bob: Hey, Dante….you’re double dipping!)
Vinman:Good to see a decision has been made. Now comes the torrent of criticism that he made the wrong choice even though nobody has seen how the competition played out.
RUDave90:I agree with most sentiments posted here, I was rooting for AJ and I think he would do well. But I believe Greg and Kirk know better and some advantage – say height or something – may be the deciding factor. If one has a more important edge, however slight, you take it.
Jcomp: Dylan will be fine, give him protection and he’ll bomb it out all day to KJ, he’ll get in a lot of games ! 8 wins !!
Greg Schiano – at least I’m pretty sure he said it – is famous for having said, “Most guys think they know how to do two things well: grill and coach football.” I think I’m pretty good with a spatula in my hand. I do not claim any acuity on a football sideline. But I have a friend who played college football and was a head coach at the high school level; I also think he’s a pretty good student of the game. In a conversation, I said that I thought Lonergan would be the starter, maybe more from how Schiano has coached and decided things in the past. He disagreed, and then got me leaning in the other direction. He repeated what others have said about the time it takes to understand Ciarrocca’s system; he noted that Surace is a coach’s kid and understands how the process works; he believed that Surace had the goods.
All kind of a moot point right now.
Which got me thinking about what some people have said about Schiano/Rutgers and how quarterbacks are dealt with around here. Here’s a supplement to Andrew’s follow up post; a brief, slightly abridged, and not necessarily totally objective review of the Schiano Quarterback Story.
The year before….
The year before GS was first hired, Terry Shea had an NFL caliber quarterback on the roster in Mike McMahon. McMahon played for the Lions for four seasons from 2001-2004, and for the Eagles in 2005. He also played in the CFL. That says two things: McMahon was pretty good to play in the pros after being on some awful Rutgers squads, and that Terry Shea actually did know how to coach quarterbacks. Chad Schwenk was McMahon’s back up and was certainly a leading candidate to start in 2001, Schiano’s first season.
The start of Schiano 1.0
But in 2001, Schiano brought in two freshmen quarterbacks: Ryan Cubit, along with New Jersey product Chris Baker from Marist HS. Oh yeah, and a new offensive coordinator: Ryan Cubit’s dad, Bill. Guess who started at quarterback for Rutgers?
Cubit the elder was the OC for two seasons, leaving for a similar position at Stanford, and then on to Western Michigan as head coach in 2004. A place where son Ryan ended up graduating when he left RU after three seasons. Maybe he left because Ryan Hart was recruited in 2002 and the situation saw Cubit, Schwenk, and Hart bumping into each other in the quarterback room, with Hart becoming the starter in 2002.
The winning years of Schiano 1.0
Hart was a three year starter under Schiano, and then redshirt freshman Mike Teel took over for Hart midway through the 2005 season. Teel rewrote the record books through 2008. That 2008 season saw several other signal callers on the roster get game time, namely Domenic Natale and Jabu Lovelace. Which meant that in 2009 one of them would be….no, that would be too logical. The starter would be a true freshman – Tom Savage – who would, in fact, earn freshman All-American honors. Savage entered the 2010 season as the face of the program; but the offense struggled as the O-line allowed a nation-worst 55 sacks. After Savage suffered a hand injury, Schiano turned to yet another true freshman, Chas Dodd. Dodd did well and fans were excited about the new guy. When Savage recovered, Schiano stuck with Dodd and – surprise! – Savage announced his transfer from Rutgers in January 2011; after not playing at Arizona (transfer rules/coach change), he moved on to Pitt and was eventually a fourth round pick of the Texans in 2014.
Schiano 2.0
Let’s use fewer words (not really) and just do a year-by-year/player-by-player review:
2020: Art Sitkowski. Remember Artur? 2018 – the Chris Ash Era. Art opens the season as a true freshman starter in the Big Ten. And in 2019, he lost the starting job to McLane Carter, who started two games. Anyone remember him? Sitkowski entered the portal, but changed his mind and returned to RU for the 2020 season, Schiano’s first year back. And Art left after that season, ending up at Illinois; he is now in his fourth season as the quarterbacks coach for the Illini.
2020-22: Noah Vedral. Remember Noah? He had a six year collegiate career (something good did come out of Covid!) which actually started at Central Florida. He moved on to Nebraska – where most of us recall him playing – where he saw action in 2018 and 2019. Then came his three seasons “on the banks”, playing the role of part-time Superman/part-time gritty fighter, from 2020-22. He was awarded Rutgers’ Bender Award in 2021, which recognizes exemplary mental and physical toughness, and also the Paul Robeson Award in 2022, which honors performance, leadership, and the impact on the team. In February 2026, he was hired as the assistant wide receivers coach at South Dakota State University.
2019-23: Johnny Langan. Everybody remembers him! Was he a quarterback? A running back? A wide receiver? Yes! And in some ways, isn’t that absolutely Rutgers-esque. Langan overlapped with….
Evan Simon (2020–2023): a QB who saw considerable backup and starting action through all those seasons. Along with….
Gavin Wimsatt (2021–2024): Highly touted recruit, the guy who we all talked about…and talked about….and couldn’t wait to se on the field. Gavin probably had unfair expectations – and aspirations – thrust upon him. Vedral was the starter through 2020 and 2021. But, by 2022, Wimsatt and Simon (redshirt freshman) forced a three-way competition. In 2023, Schiano finally ended the committee approach and named Wimsatt the starter. While Wimsatt’s athleticism led the team to a bowl game victory, his sub-50% passing accuracy kept fans (fickle lot!) talking about whether Simon should be re-inserted into the lineup. Following the 2023 season, the highly recruited QB returned to his home state and the University of Kentucky, a move that lasted one season before he moved again to Jacksonville State. He had very modest success there as a starter (2-3), but in April was invited to rookie camp by the Commanders….and was in the same QB room as Athan Kaliakmanis.
What does it all mean….if anything?
I still think I cook pretty well on a grill. But I still don’t think I can coach football. Doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion.
Seven seasons and now (I think?) seven different players who have started at quarterback for Rutgers in the second Schiano era. If I’m counting correctly, only three of them were recruited out of high school by his staffs. Vedral, Kaliakmanis, and now Lonergan are portal/transfer players….and maybe that’s how it’s going to be from now on. Will the P4 schools pass on an 18-year old, letting them earn their chops at a lower level, then swoop in to pay them for a year or two? As was noted in the comments above, “The ability to recruit high school QBs has just gotten harder for this school”, meaning RU. If that’s true, does it really matter if we get a 4 or 5 star QB out of high school? Look at Wimsatt; highest rated QB ever to attend RU (I’m pretty sure) and ends up in Conference USA.
Like most of you, the bottomline for me is that I want Rutgers to do well. If that’s Dylan Lonergan, so be it. But, on a human level, it kinda feels a little flawed and shallow for AJ Surace.
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