PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Everyone loves a good walk-on story. But for Christian Dremel, he didn’t want to simply be a good story. Dremel, a senior and the team’s leading receiver wants to write a new story for Rutgers football in the Big Ten.
He sees a narrative for a team that is ready to be changed.
Dremel, a product of Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, New Jersey), came to Rutgers in 2019 to play for then-head coach Chris Ash. As a walk-on, he came without the fanfare and star rankings that many of the players came into the program with. That suited Dremel just fine.
All he had to do was simply work. And when Schiano returned to the program that next year, Dremel was ready to embrace a new and different role with the team.
For most walk-ons, the goal is to simply make the team and get spot action on special teams or have a handful of snaps. But Dremel’s dreams were never about what he could get from the program.
In what could best be described as a vision, Dremel asked himself a simple, selfless question: How could he change the narrative of a program that had been beaten down and laughed about for so long?
Dremel wanted to pour himself into Rutgers and be part of the program’s change.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be around a lot of really great (players) -hefore I came here, I was able to spend a lot of time with like Michael Burton my senior year of high school and he was a walk on and he’s an extremely hard worker,” Dremel said on Wednesday following practice.
“Obviously, he’s played a lot, a lot…many years in the NFL. And like, that summer going in he definitely taught me a lot and it changed. It helped me create a mindset for myself on what my purpose was of coming here.
“And obviously, you know, it’s now my fifth year. It’s taken time but every single year under coach Schiano, you know, we’ve been working to just to win every single week, trying to go 1-0. And I think that – regardless if you’re a walk-on or scholarship guy – when you’re on a team you want to win and you want to help however you can.”
Following the 2020 season, Schiano put Dremel on scholarship.
Today, he leads Rutgers in receptions (21) and receiving touchdowns (3). He is second on the team, behind JaQuae Jackson, in receiving yardage (282).
The rise of Dremel
On Saturday, Dremel had six catches for 80 yards as Rutgers pulled off a dramatic comeback win over Michigan State. With the win, Rutgers is now 5-2 (2-2 Big Ten).
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After the game, Schiano had a throwaway line in his post-Michigan State press conference. In talking about Dremmel, he referred to the Rutgers wide receiver in a way that only Schiano could and would.
The line didn’t get any pick-up nationally by the Big Ten Network or create any buzz. But any one paying attention understood what the Rutgers head coach was saying.
Schiano recalled seeing Dremel around the Hale Center, the team’s facility, and being struck with an impression about his wide receiver.
“The other day he had an oversized sweatshirt on and some loose pants, and you would have said the guy was, you know, the guy who serves the coffee at Starbucks,” Schiano said.
“You wouldn’t say he was a Big Ten slot receiver who is really doing well, and we were joking with him. But he is a fighter. He is a warrior, and he’s a lot faster than people think, too, which helps him, really helps him.”
Dremel is unassuming in that way. Despite the tattoos and a mustache that is trendy, he is not one to draw attention to himself.
He’d rather simply get down to work. In many ways, Dremel has intertwined himself into the program’s D.N.A. with leadership by example that has been built under pressure in his life for well over a decade.
Focused on the task at hand, he along with teammate [autotag]Kyle Monangai[/autotag], have very much bought into the ‘CHOP’ mentality instilled upon Schiano’s return to the program.
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Growing up, Dremel played alongside Monangai on the Montclair Cobras, an elite junior program in north Jersey. It was there, in a setting that was ultra-competitive, where the now Big Ten player learned his first lessons about not just work ethic but also resilience.
“I really do think it goes back to those days when I was a young, a young guy playing in Montclair. That was a really good program, a really good youth program. definitely taught me how to be a tough worker, how to be a hard worker and then being able to go to school like Don Bosco Prep and learn from having a lot of tough guys before me play -to see them and then kind of that just becomes a part of you,” Dremel said.
“And just being in this program, you know, you have to be a hard worker in this program. Not a single guy in this program doesn’t work hard. You know, we’ve worked our tails off every single day. And it’s a detailed, focused work – it’s not just working for no reason. Like it’s focused, everything has a purpose, everything we do has a reason. And once you do that over and over and over again…it just becomes second nature.”
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Not surprisingly, Dremel isn’t a frills guy. When asked on Wednesday about Schiano’s comments comparing him to a Starbucks barista, the Rutgers wide receiver chuckled.
His signature drink, he said, was pretty unassuming. Not unlike the man himself.
“I just like, cold brew or like vanilla latte or something like that,” Dremel said.