Gavin Wimsatt Commits to Kentucky!!
- Thread starter Knight Shift
- Start date
In 2022, Daniel Jackson caught one more pass than Dremel caught for us last season. His numbers took a significant boost with AK as the starter this season all year. This is not in any way a case where he was putting up those numbers his whole career like a Caroo type.
Minny doesn’t look to pass and didn’t have great receivers either.
The current debate here about who would have won more games with which team is, IMHO, silly. I like numbers as much as the next fan, but last year's statistics strike me as a poor basis for deciding whether Kaliakmanis or Wimsatt would be a better QB for Rutgers this coming season. We would laugh if Schiano made his choice on that basis. Instead, he's doing what any sensible person would do: looking at their performances on the practice field.
Its being raised because Al and a few others keep blasting the idea of replacing a QB who led us to 7 wins (clearly with the implication of replacing him with one who won 5 games).
It’s a ridiculous point in the first place because our D was much better than Minnesota’s meaning that whoever the QB was at either place needed to score more to win more at Minny - a lot more.
As this thread shows, I am not a big fan of @rutgersal. But I think you are mischaracterizing his position. He is not "blasting" or even questioning the decision to replace Wimsatt. All he's doing is to defending Wimsatt from excessive criticism. Wimsatt was not a good QB, but he certainly wasn't as bad as some posters make him out to be. And even if he was . . . he's gone so there's no point debating the matter.
No that’s not true. He literally just said he thinks AK will have to complete 58%+ of his passes to make up for Gavin’s legs.
That's not the same as "blasting" the decision to replace Wimsatt. All his comment means is that Wimsatt is a running QB and Kaliakmanis isn't, and so Kaliakmanis's passing performance has to be good enough to make up for that. That's pretty obvious. Presumably the coaches think it will be.
It's what we tend to do here. Maybe "we" does not include all of us, but perhaps you will remember the arguments about Rettig having a higher ceiling than the other QBs on the roster, and he should have been given a chance. Time and experience proved he was not up to the task. Nice young man.
Agreed.
And @Yeah Baby scolding people and calling them douches for voicing their opinions is comical. This is a football board. The QB is the leader of the offense. GW was a heralded recruit who was being paid significant NIL money. Fair criticism of his shortcomings as a QB is not allowed? Also, don't recall more than 1 or 2 posters being vitriolic about his leaving or questioning why Kentucky would taking him. And vitriolic would be a stretch. Kentucky fans raised many of the same questions/issues Rutgers fans have been discussing.
I will say it one more time. I wish Gavin well at Kentucky. I hope he lights it up there. More importantly, I wish the same for Athan here at Rutgers. In both cases, it does not mean that Rutgers coaches failed with Gavin or that Athan is better than Gavin. The change of scenery for both QBs may benefit them both.
Okay - if you don’t want to call it blasting, then it’s simply misinformed because it’s a false narrative that AK would automatically need to improve on his prior completion numbers by a minimum of 5%+ to match Gavin’s “productivity” from last season. Talk about making assumptions and speculations. Whose to say Gavin’s extra 56 rush attempts on the season (and he also played an extra game) aren’t replaced by more successful rushing output from Sam, Kyle, Benjamin, etc.? Kyle averaged 5.2 ypc. Gavin averaged 3.8.
Al will say the 2-3 chunk runs on the entire season (Indiana and VTech games) from Gavin opened things up for Kyle. But meanwhile, we should automatically dismiss the possibility of even the semblance of a lateral game not also opening things up for the running game in different ways? AK already poses the threat of a chunk lateral play with his 2023 production. A boost in completion percentage is not a prerequisite for this as the scouting report says that he (like most QBs) is reliable with these throws). Gavin was a rarity in struggling with those throws. I’m not an X’s and O’s expert but the scouting report on this issue had to be something that opposing teams took note of - didn’t it?
Last edited:
??? Gay jokes on an anonymous message board, good one Rutgers class of 95. Way to think fast...but Wimsatt is on another team now and Rutgers has a passing QB so your posts should be all positive. And again if you're not giving credit to Gavin for any of last years success while putting all of the losses on him you aren't basing your thoughts on football youre basing them on some type of emotion.
Last edited:
I wish Gavin the student well and hope he earns his degree while on the Wildcat football team.So am rooting for him to be successful academically
But as an athlete , I only wish him an injury free career there and will let the Kentucky fans root for him having a successful QB career there .
He could have stayed and tried to earn the starting position in the fall camp just before season starts , but he decided to leave and start anew someplace else.
I don't blame him one bit for that and going to Kentucky was him returning to his home state to play making the move look like something that probably will make him feel in a better place to find happiness as a player
Can't fault Wimsatt one bit for making the move, but only hope he finds happiness there and his athletic success can be hoped for by Wildcat fans
So do you not think we could win 10-12 games this year?
If not, why? Do you fear we move away from running it 60% of the time and become more balanced on offense?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Clearly HC Schiano disagrees with your assessment.
If he thought we could win 10-12 games with Gavin then doubtful he explores a transfer QB and certainly doesn’t name the starter already.
Or maybe HC Schiano did think we could win 10-12 with Gavin.
But thinks we can be even better with AK. Playoffs here we come!
Look back at this thread. I am not a hater of Gavin. I have wished him well multiple times. I liked his presence & calmness in the pocket - and wished he stayed to be the back up. That being said he could never get us to the next level based on his passing stats. For the 3rd or 4th time now, I wish him success at UK.
Also confused on your response on my comment on why UK was interested in him as a running QB. I assume you meant to quote someone else.
It wasn’t solely his passing stats that might have gotten us to the next level. It was a blend of his passing and running.
GS would never let him be the dual threat we had hoped for. Then throw in GW’s inaccuracies, it’s best we move on. I like the dual threat QB’s but he needed to be better at the passing game. That ship has sailed. We need to support AK and the rest of the QB’s now and look forward to your perfect season prediction.
We certainly weren't running RPOs. But was that because Schiano didn't like them -- or because Wimsatt didn't show good decisionmaking on RPOs? My impression was that we had RPO plays in the playbook but that the coaching staff didn't trust Winsatt to run them correctly. That meant that Wimsatt could do only designed QB runs and that lessened his effectiveness as a rusher.
With a dual threat we’re capable of recruiting, there’s a tradeoff. For the rushing capability, you accept slightly less passing proficiency. You’d hope your dual threat could at least complete 50-55% of his passes.
But Agree with your sentiment.
Point is, we didn’t have a Daniel Jackson caliber receiver on the team last year, a true WR1. To his credit, he got a lot better. We’re hoping to see a similar type jump with Ian Strong, and hopefully Miller will put up similar numbers. This year, the WR Corp has serious talent.
We get it. You don’t like Gavin. Now we look
To the future with Athan.
To run the RPO you need a QB that can actually pass the ball accurately.
No - I have no problem with Gavin and I wish him well in his next home as long as he’s not playing us. For his sake, I hope he eventually figures things out but I respectfully disagree with everything your saying about his past performance as a passer. You started a thread about how he was going to take us to the national championship next year, or something like that. The funny thing is, if we end up having an amazing season, you’ll still probably be talking about how it’s too bad it’s not Gavin because he would be doing the same thing now that we have better receivers. Even if he’s riding UK’s bench. But again - I have nothing against him. I’m certainly not rooting for him to do poorly over there.
People always make that argument about AK having Jackson. Minnesota had a much higher drop rate. And I thought our receivers got open just fine. And they caught just about everything catchable.
Gavin had a 62% completion rate vs Penn State and a 58% completion rate vs Northwestern. And a decent completion rate vs Wagner. So he was accurate enough in some of the games. Needs to be accurate in all the games.
They had that one goto receiver, which helps with completion percentage. None of our receivers were Carroo, Sanu, or even Melton.
Last edited:
He did a tremendous job at Boise State last year:
In his first season guiding the Bronco offense, Hamdan has led an explosive unit that has had one of its most successful seasons in recent years. He guided the team to nine-straight games scoring 30 or more points, matching national semifinalists Michigan and Texas for the second-longest streak in the nation and the longest such streak for the Blue and Orange since 2011. The Broncos were second in the MW in scoring offense while ranking third in total offense.
He also directed an offensive unit that saw Ashton Jeanty awarded All-America honors as well as being named the Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year. One of the most dynamic tailbacks in the nation, Jeanty ranks second nationally in yards from scrimmage (1,814) and all-purpose yards per game (164.91) while averaging 4.7 yards per run after contact and 14.4 yards after catch per reception, both of which lead the nation. The team's rushing success, which ranks sixth nationally at 214.8 yards per game, was due in part to an offensive line that ranks 12th in the nation allowing only 1.08 sacks per game while converting 80% of fourth downs, a mark that ranks third nationally.
Bush Hamdan - Football Coach - Boise State University Athletics
Bush Hamdan spent the 2023 season as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Boise State, guiding the Broncos to a tie for the regular season Mountai...
You haven’t been watching Rutgers develop qbs the last 2.5 decades, have ya??
Just pointing out that he was accurate at times but needs to be consistent. Also, our schedule was exceptionally difficult, playing the tough defenses of Penn State, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. This year, thankfully, the schedule is a lot easier.
A logical thing to do would be the same exercise looking at AK's year. But I have a feeling we won't be seeing you raving about AK's 12 of 14 against UL.
Judging from the recent QB play at RU, and KC's previous stint here, that's not exactly a wild assumption.
This is a really dumb conversation. But KC coached 5 QBs during his time at Rutgers and 2 of them went to the NFL. And players like Dodd and Vedral...hard for anyone to say he didn't get the best out of the limited talent available.
Yeah this should be the focal point. It's never been a strength of Schianos teams and I'm far less confident given how 2.0 doesn't seem to accept that the game has changed.
Gavin did some good things last year, but things like being told not to run, continued mechanics issues (which is coaching 101 not some advanced concept), vanilla passing / play design concepts, etc. are on coaches kit him.
I am happy Gavin gets to go back home and get a shot there. I think he hit his ceiling for us but I like the kid. Best of luck to him.
AK- it will be fun to see how he does here and if our OL can hold a good pocket, he may have some good success. He, just is not more of a sure thing then GW was.
Looking at Minny's schedule last year- we most likely go 7-8 wins. Not much of a difference. I don't know if AK gets us an extra win if he was here.
But, there is no reason for anyone to go onto the KY board and basically bad mouth the kid- how petty is that?
And truth be told, I don't know if he could have improved, but he did gets us 7 wins with the 5th toughest schedule in the country.
AK- it will be fun to see how he does here and if our OL can hold a good pocket, he may have some good success. He, just is not more of a sure thing then GW was.
Looking at Minny's schedule last year- we most likely go 7-8 wins. Not much of a difference. I don't know if AK gets us an extra win if he was here.
But, there is no reason for anyone to go onto the KY board and basically bad mouth the kid- how petty is that?
And truth be told, I don't know if he could have improved, but he did gets us 7 wins with the 5th toughest schedule in the country.
AK lighting it up for RU might dispel the notion Greg's game day strategy hinders the offense.
Admittedly Schiano's offense has been considered a weakness , while his D has been considered excellent.
AK will need to show he has the talent and stuff good QBs are made of for the RU O to be considered a good one.
Ruthers can have a winning season on with a great ground game and it's great D, but without a good passing attack : the type of season to brag about won't be there
