Surace primed for success at Rutgers through work with QB guru Racioppi
Tony Racioppi knows a Big Ten quarterback when he sees one.
Racioppi, a quarterback guru and a top instructor at places like the TEST Football Academy in nearby Martinsville and the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana, has trained several recent starting quarterbacks in one of the nation’s premier conferences including Penn State’s all-time leading passer in Sean Clifford.
In his mind, there is no doubt that Rutgers commit AJ Surace fits that mold.
“He looks like what a Big Ten starting quarterback would look like,” said Racioppi, who was one of the most prolific passers in NCAA history at Rowan. “He’s a big, strong kid that can play from the pocket and drive the football, but extend the plays and make throws outside the pocket as well, which you have to do nowadays in college football because defenses are so good.”
Surace, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound three-star recruit who will graduate from Notre Dame High in 2024, announced Sunday that he chose Rutgers over seven other Power Five programs.
“The culture really excites me and Coach (Greg) Schiano and Coach (Kirk) Ciarrocca’s vision of where the program will be and where the offense will be,” Surace said. “I’m really excited to build a class around me of a bunch of really good players and make something special.”
Racioppi has developed numerous Princeton quarterbacks over the years, so it was only natural that five years ago his latest pupil would be the son of Princeton coach Bob Surace.
When Surace got to seventh grade, he began a regimen with Racioppi that has consisted of one or two workouts per week from January through the start of school football over the summer.
Racioppi knew early on that he had a prodigy on his hands.
“Always a driven kid, always very focused,” Racioppi said. “He’s different just because he’s been around such elite quarterbacks and coaches because of his family. He’s a kid that’s soaked up pretty much anybody that’s ever coached him, or obviously going to practice and watching an Ivy League Player of the Year quarterback who played for his dad. He’s that kid that soaks up everything. He’s always wanted to be great. There’s a drive to him and just an improvement — obsessed with improving that all the good ones that I’ve had over the years have.”
A typical workout with Racioppi focuses on a quarterback’s throwing sequence, drop-back footwork, moving in the pocket, running on bootlegs and scrambles, and throwing outside the pocket. The goal is to make balanced, straight throws all over the field.
“You’re always chasing being more consistent throwing the football and from a footwork standpoint,” Racioppi said. “He’s a kid that, if you watched him throw, he’s got big-time arm talent. He can throw it with a lot of top-tier kids in the country. I would say from an arm-talent standpoint, he’s probably top-10 in his class in the country in throwing the football.”
Surace says Racioppi has provided strong mentorship for his passing mechanics along with upper-level concepts for his footwork while throwing to NFL and college receivers.
Surace has gotten to throw with Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett
and Cardinals quarterback Trace McSorley — two Racioppi disciples — and other top high school quarterbacks like Iowa commit Marco Lainez who is a senior at Hun, where Racioppi has been the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for six years.
“I think this offseason I’ve really cleaned up mechanically, and that’s kind of led to me gaining a bunch of yards on my deep ball and really improving accuracy, and my spin of the ball has gotten a lot better,” Surace said. “I’ve just really improved as a thrower, and that’s all tied in with my mechanics and footwork and arm speed. I kind of worked on those things, and it kind of led to all that.”
Pocket passing is Surace’s strength, but he is also eager to show off his rushing ability more in his senior season at Notre Dame.
“I didn’t run as much this year because I fractured my fibula in our first game, so I didn’t really run until like the last three weeks, but I’ve definitely been working athletically a lot, too, starting to get a lot more explosive, and my numbers are all going up,” Surace said. “So I’m really excited with how that’s been
going.”
Surace began playing quarterback in sixth grade and always liked throwing the ball when he was younger as part of a football family. His uncle, Brian Surace, played at Princeton and Gettysburg and was the head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson. His grandfather, Tony Surace, was the head football and baseball coach and athletic director at Millville High for many years.
Surace is ready to carve his own path at Rutgers and help lead Schiano’s second rebuilding project at the school.
After Ciarrocca got the job last month as Schiano’s new offensive coordinator, Surace says he knew from communicating with Ciarrocca, visiting Rutgers and spending time learning about his system that it was the perfect fit.
“I think talking to him, the way he develops his quarterbacks to think how he thinks with his concepts, there’s a lot of RPOs (runpass options) and I think he does a really good job developing his quarterbacks to play well and get better,” Surace said.
As someone who has known Ciarrocca for 25 years, Racioppi says his RPOs, play-action passing and West Coast concepts with spreading receivers out and throwing the ball underneath are “all stuff that AJ does really well.”
“I’m excited about him coming back (coached at Rutgers from 2008-10) and calling plays and coaching the quarterbacks,” Racioppi said. “It’s a good deal and I think AJ is going to be a great player there. I do.”
As for what Rutgers fans should be most optimistic about, Racioppi says it boils down to Surace’s ability to make every throw, see the entire field and process information quickly because of how long he has been around football.
The other big component is Surace’s ability to drive an offense in bad weather, which often happens at Big Ten venues.
“He can go play in really bad weather and into a really strong wind and drive the football, whether that’s with velocity or throwing it deep,” Racioppi said. “He’s a smart, tough kid. He’s a kid that you blitz him and hit him, he’s gonna bounce back up and get back in there, and he’s got really good leadership qualities.”