Laviano leads QB competition
PISCATAWAY >> Based on the first hour of Thursday’s spring practice, it was reasonable to believe Hayden Rettig had perhaps usurped Chris Laviano in Rutgers’ quarterback pecking order, a competition declared wide open at the beginning of camp just two weeks ago.
While the quarterbacks passed the ball simultaneously as a pair during the team’s first sets of endzone route drills, Rettig was the one who stole the show toward the end of the first half of practice open to the media. During those final 10 minutes, the Los Angeles native received every rep in a team drill featuring read-option plays where the quarterback either handed the ball off from shotgun or tucked it and ran laterally.
Evidently, there wasn’t much to read into.
Head coach Chris Ash revealed following practice that while Laviano hasn’t quite separated himself, the junior is currently receiving a few more first-team reps as a whole than Rettig and Gio Rescigno because “he’s probably had a few more productive days as we’ve gone through seven practices.”
“He understands the offense,” Ash said of Laviano. “He has protected the football, not as good as we want to, but he’s probably protected the football better than the other quarterbacks. And when I say that, he’s made better decisions. I think the overall understanding of what we’re trying to do: how to get the call from the sideline, be able to get guys lined up, call the play out on the field, if it’s not right get the picture right, if somebody is aligned wrong he understands how to get them aligned right.
“When you’re going with tempo, you’re talking about two things: You talk about emergency and urgency. He right now is operating with a lot of urgency back there in the no-huddle offense and not necessarily with a lot of emergency. It’s slowing down for him a little, probably more so than the others.”
Ash added that Laviano, Rettig and Rescigno will take reps with the first- and second-team units in Rutgers’ second spring scrimmage Saturday. Laviano, though, has earned a few more reps, “and that will be reflected in the scrimmage.”
“Again, there’s not a big separation,” Ash said, “but he’s probably just a few steps ahead of the other guys.”
Here are two other spring developments from Thursday’s practice, where the Knights worked out with only helmets and shoulder pads: starts), sophomore Tariq Cole has impressed at the left tackle spot alongside four returning starters from 2015.
“There’s still some really good competition at certain spots,” Ash said. “There’s not a clear-cut one or two yet. We hope to get there by the end of spring, and if we don’t, we’ll take it on through the summer and training camp.” pass concepts. Defensively, Rutgers is ahead of schedule with pressure packages. But execution in some areas is still lacking, and this early in the year the program remains in a bind.
“We’re kind of at a standstill right now because it’s really about situational stuff right now,” Ash said. “Last week we focused on some third down. Today we focused on a lot of redzone stuff. And Saturday we’ll be able to scrimmage first down, second down, some third down and some redzone. Those situational packages are very small right now.”