Tag: Athan Kaliakmanis

Transfer portal: Athan Kaliakmanis is set for a Rutgers football official visit

Rutgers football is hosting a transfer portal quarterback this week.

Athan Kaliakmanis, the starting quarterback at Minnesota last season, will be visiting Rutgers football this weekend. For a Rutgers quarterback room that lacks depth, it is an understandable development out of the transfer portal.

Rutgers Wire can confirm the news, which was broken on Tuesday night by 247Sports’ Allen Trieu.

This offseason, Evan Simon entered the transfer portal. Simon saw spot starting duty last year and served as Gavin Wimsatt’s back-up this year. His departure means that after Wimsatt, the only other scholarship quarterback currently on the Rutgers roster is Ajani Sheppard.

Three-star quarterback A.J. Surace is expected to sign with Rutgers this month and join the program in January.

As for Kaliakmanis, he would bring some strong experience to Rutgers. Last season for Minnesota, he completed 53.1 percent of his passes for 1,831 yards. He had 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

He is a pro-style quarterback and not a dual-threat like Wimsatt.

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Kaliakmanis was recruited to Minnesota by then-Golden Gophers offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, who is now the offensive coordinator at Rutgers. Ciarrocca turned a Rutgers offense that had struggled for much of the last decade in the Big Ten into a unit that was viable and functioning.

 

Kaliakmanis had his best performance of last season in Minnesota’s 49-30 loss at Purdue. He was 18-of-42 for 292 yards with three touchdowns.

Minnesota’s starting quarterback is entering the transfer portal

Minnesota’s starting quarterback is entering the transfer portal

The week gets rougher for Wisconsin’s border rival Minnesota, as its starting quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis announced recently he would be entering the transfer portal.

Kaliakmanis started for a year and a half in Minneapolis, taking over for an injured Tanner Morgan in 2022. He finished his Minnesota career with a 9-9 record as the starter, a completion percentage of 53.3, 2784 total yards, 17 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.

Given the general mediocrity of the offense and the four-game losing streak to end the 2023 season after a 5-3 start, maybe Gophers fans aren’t crushed to see the news today. After all, losing large quantities of production off of poor units isn’t always the worst thing for the future.

But what it does mean is P.J. Fleck has some big moves to make entering 2024.

Fleck’s mantra and attitude don’t work nearly as well when the team is missing bowl games (but yet still somehow making one because they’re good at academics).

Minnesota has now had one 10-win season under Fleck (11 wins in 2019), and seemed to step backwards in 2023 after consecutive 9-4 seasons in 2021 and 2022. Now with an opening at quarterback, it’s a significant offseason for Fleck and his staff.

 

UPDATE: Minnesota third-string QB Drew Viotto has also entered the portal. That’s two of the program’s top three quarterbacks.