PISCATAWAY, N.J. — At some point during a commercial break on Saturday afternoon, the sound system at SHI Stadium will blast out the crowd favorite that is Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. A song about escapism, it also sums up a part of Rutgers football quarterback Gavin Wimsatt’s development as an offensive weapon.
While an uptick in his passing numbers are certainly impressive, perhaps the biggest area of growth for Wimsatt is his taking off down the field. The Rutgers quarterback is running more this season, and he is doing so with greater effectiveness.
In fact, through the first four games of this season, Wimsatt has doubled his output from his first two seasons of college football, combined.
Wimsatt has 172 rushing yards on 34 carries for Rutgers (3-1, 1-1 Big Ten), representing 5.05 yards per carry. His first two seasons, representing a total of 12 games played, Wimsatt ran the ball a combined 49 times for 131 yards (2.67 yards per carry)
Now, Wimsatt played limited snaps in several of those games, but the yards per carry stat tell a compelling story. Wimsatt is running more effectively, and choosing a better time to take off when he does.
“I don’t know I had many but I would say just a little bit all the above,” Wimsatt said on Tuesday after being told the improvement of his running numbers.
“Confidence in my running ability. You know, the schemes that coach Ciarrocca (offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca) has put up and just would say that’s really mostly it. My confidence in the schemes, my confidence in my running ability has grown, especially since coming off the ankle injury. And I would say that coach Ciarrocca puts me in great positions to where I’m able to run and use my running ability.”
The Rutgers quarterback also has the first two rushing touchdowns of his college career this season.
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Wimsatt also has shown some rather significant growth as a passer this season. His completion percentage on the season stands at 51.7 percent, up from last year when he was 44.8 percent.
He has flipped the script on his struggles with turnovers with four passing touchdowns and an interception this season (he had five touchdowns and seven interceptions in 2022).
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“I think what Gavin is doing is he’s getting a better and better understanding of exactly what we want to do on offense, what his job is, and he’s trusting his training. He’s trained very hard,” head coach Greg Schiano told reporters on Monday.
“All off-season, I’ve told you guys that with coach Ciarrocca, he’s trusting that training under the fire, and he just needs to continue to do that. He’s got the ability for sure. He’s done a nice job not only running the ball — not only throwing the ball but running the ball and being a complete quarterback.
“So we just need to keep building on that.”