PISCATAWAY, N.J. — The arrival of Athan Kalaikmanis this semester to Rutgers football also heralds a quarterback competition for the Big Ten program.
A competition that Rutgers didn’t have last year but badly needed. And in the arrival of Kalaikmanis, the Scarlet Knights now have two quarterbacks with significant starting experience in the Big Ten.
Kaliakmanis comes to Rutgers after two years at Minnesota that showed steady growth. He enters into a quarterback room headlined by Gavin Wimsatt, who started every game last year and led Rutgers to a bowl game.
Wimsatt was named the starter last year before the start of training camp, effectively ending a quarterback competition then and there. He completed 47.8 percent of his passes, throwing for 1,735 yards with nine touchdowns and eight interceptions.
He also rushed for 497 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Now, Rutgers has a competition this spring that could well go into the summer.
“We felt we needed to strengthen our performance of the position and whether it’s with Gavin who played all of last season, brought in someone that we thought could help strengthen it,” head coach Greg Schiano said on Tuesday.
“We also brought in…we have Ajanni Shepherd in the program. And we have a freshman that is starting now (in) AJ Surace (who) has been with us all winter. So we have four scholarship quarterbacks in the program right now and they will compete and we’ll figure out who gives us the best chance to win.”
Kirk Ciarrocca recruited Kaliakmanis when he was the Minnesota offensive coordinator in 2021. The quarterback ended up starting several games during the 2022 season and was the starter last year for Minnesota.
Ciarrocca is now in his second season as the offensive coordinator at Rutgers.
This past season showed some of the promise in Kaliakmanis. As a sophomore, Kaliakmanis completed 53.1 percent of his passes for 1,831 yards with 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Solid numbers in the Big Ten.
“Well, Kirk obviously has experience with him from the University of Minnesota. So we knew the competitor he is, we knew he has a background in this system,” Schiano said.
“And it just it was a guy that we believe in, and it gives us a chance to create competition and hopefully the cream will rise to the top and we’ll have better quarterback play in ’24 than we did in ’23.”
