Athan Kaliakmanis named QB1 for Rutgers, Gavin Wimsatt to enter portal

Rutgers fans were wondering who was going to start under center this season and now the answer is clear. Gavin Wimsatt has entered the transfer portal and Athan Kaliakmanis will be the team’s starting quarterback.

This news comes just four days after Kaliakmanis out-performed Wimsatt in Rutgers’ annual spring game. Kaliakmanis played well enough to earn the starting nod, prompting Wimsatt to explore his options elsewhere. Wimsatt will have two years of eligibility remaining as he enters the portal.

This decisive decision-making about the winner of the quarterback is unusual for Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano. Two seasons ago when Rutgers had a three-way battle for starting quarterback, Schiano waited until kickoff to announce who the starting quarterback would be. This year, he wasted no time, announcing his decision just four days after the Rutgers spring game.

Kaliakmanis is a product of offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, who worked with him at Minnesota and brought him in at Rutgers when Kaliakmanis entered the portal.

The move to Kaliakmanis

While it is shocking that the news broke this early, it is hard to say that this was impossible to see coming. The two have very comparable stats in 2023 to one another however Kaliakmanis threw for five more touchdowns on just five more passing attempts and he has a slightly better quarterback rating, 55.5 to Wimsatt’s 55.1. Kaliakmanis also played the ball better through the air during the Rutgers spring game.

The biggest factor of them all is perhaps Wimsatt’s own performance in the spring game. All of the lingering issues he had last year were on full display without showing significant signs of improvement or really any improvement for that matter. Comparing that to Kaliakmanis who was on-target during the whole game, threw for more touchdowns during the game, and was able to hit the long ball throws a lot more effectively than Wimsatt.

However, Rutgers will be losing a dynamic piece of its offense in the form of Wimsatt’s legs. Last year, Wimsatt was able to use his legs to get the Knights eleven touchdowns, the longest of which was an 80-yard scamper to the house against Indiana that sealed Rutgers’ sixth win and earned the Knights bowl eligibility for the first time since 2014. In addition, Wimsatt was able to pick up 497 yards on 131 carries, something that brought significant diversity to the Rutgers offense.

With Kaliakmanis at the helm, Rutgers does not have that diversity that it relied on so much last year. In 2023, Kaliakmanis only ran for 94 yards on 74 attempts and only averaged around 1.3 yards per carry. Compare that to Wimsatt who had 3.8 yards per carry. Rutgers also won’t be able to rely on Kaliakmanis’s legs for touchdowns either as he only ran for two touchdowns last season.

It will be interesting to see if the offense still has quarterback rollouts as a major component in their pass sets. Last year, in an effort to give Wimsatt the option to run if what he wanted wasn’t there, Ciarrocca implemented a lot of quarterback rollouts that Wimsatt often used to take off if he had green grass in front of him. Now with a less mobile quarterback, is a similar offense still in the cards for the Knights? It is hard to say yes here with last year’s stats in mind.

The one bright side for Kaliakmanis is that he will be inheriting a Rutgers wide receiver core that is seemingly drastically improved compared to the one that Wimsatt had to throw, too. Only time will tell how much better they actually are though.

A drastic shift is imminent in how the Knights will run their offense. Expect more pocket passing.

Peter Thamel of ESPN was the first to break the news of Kaliakmanis’s victory and Wimsatt’s departure on Twitter.