BRONX, N.Y. — When Gavin Wimsatt arrived at Rutgers three years ago, the highly-touted quarterback was expected to be a huge part of the program’s rebuild. On Thursday evening, he celebrated his team’s win over Miami in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl
Wimsatt’s season, which started with strong performances against Northwestern and Temple, is now defined most by Thursday’s win. The 20-year-old quarterback guided his Rutgers football team to a bowl victory over a storied Miami program.
In doing so, Wimsatt snapped a stretch of nine years without a bowl win and got the first bowl win of the Greg Schiano 2.0 era at Rutgers. Wimsatt ran for two touchdowns (of the ‘tush push’ variety’) to guide the Scarlet Knights to the win on Thursday over Miami.
“It means a lot. When I committed here, obviously it was a little bit of a leap of faith, but I trusted in coach Schiano, and he had a plan, and we had the right guys. So it’s an exciting moment for this to happen,” Wimsatt said after the game.
“This is what we pictured, but we have bigger plans, but this is just a step in the right direction. It’s exciting.
With the win, Rutgers finishes with a winning season (7-6, 3-5 Big Ten) for the first time since 2014. Wimsatt started every one of those games in a season where the Scarlet Knights closed the gap a bit on the rest of the Big Ten.
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Wimsatt too, closed the gap a bit in his development and maturation.
On the season, he finished with 1,735 passing yards with nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. He also had 497 rushing yards and 11 rushing touchdowns.
Thursday saw Wimsatt manage an offense that did not turn the ball over once in getting the win over Miami.
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“What we did today is we took care of the football. We knew that if we could take it away — I count punt blocks as a take-away, where it was a pick six or fumble six when you block a punt,” Schiano said during his post-game press conference.
“We knew if we could win the turnover margin that we felt very confident we would win the game. Did we play a little tight to the vest? Sure, we did, because we felt that was the kind of game we had to play.
“We’ll develop. Like at every position, we’ll continue to develop, including the quarterback position. We’ll just keep getting better. Like you said, that’s part of the — today I thought a developmental program was on display. You look at some of the young guys.”
Scroll down and enjoy some of the best moments from Thursday’s Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl for Rutgers football!