Rutgers Football Notes-Freshman QB poised to take

[bullwark]

Put Ryan Hart and Mike Teel on equal footing in terms of playing time and experience and Rutgers might well be dealing with a quarterback controversy right now -- one fueled further by their respective performances in yesterday's scrimmage.

But the disparity in those areas between Hart, a senior entering his third year as a starter, and Teel, a redshirt freshman who has yet to see game action, is still too great to create a true controversy.

Instead, what the Knights seem to have -- for the first time in a while -- is the luxury of two quality quarterbacks to call on.

And head coach Greg Schiano said he definitely will call on the highly touted Teel at points this season, although he is not quite sure how, or under what conditions.

"Right now we're still determining at what level (Teel will play), because we really haven't had that long to coach him," Schiano said. "We had him some in the spring (Teel missed most of last fall with an ankle injury) and what we've had so far. We're learning every day, as he is."

Asked how much Teel would play -- Hart sat out just 18 snaps last season -- Schiano said "his performance will dictate it."

If the second scrimmage is a barometer, the answer would seem to be that Rutgers will have to find a way to squeeze in the 6-4, 220-pound former Don Bosco Prep star.

Teel, who had an uneven first scrimmage on Tuesday, bounced back with an impressive second one yesterday at Rutgers Stadium. Poised and confident from the start, he was 9-for-13 for 150 yards and two touchdowns -- one a beautifully lofted 44-yard strike to Willie Foster -- and didn't have a turnover.

Hart, meanwhile, was 8-for-14 for 103 yards with one touchdown. But he suffered two more interceptions and lost yet another fumbled exchange from center, giving him five turnovers in the two scrimmages.

A year ago, despite setting school records for attempts (453), completions (295) and passing yards (3,154), Hart tied Joe Dailey (then of Nebraska, now of North Carolina) for the most interceptions in the country (19) and was guilty of 23 turnovers overall. That's two a game.

"I'm trying to work that out," Hart said of his interception problem. "The first interception (yesterday) was a good read by me. I just let the ball get away from me. It was a sloppy throw.

"I'm still working on my consistency and keeping the ball safe. Thankfully, it was a scrimmage and not a game."

Hart said he thinks "the coaches are pretty happy with the way I've taken care of the ball in training camp," but Schiano did put his quarterback on notice during the off-season about his turnover problems.

"The interceptions, obviously they're a concern. The fumbled snap you can't put on Ryan unless it was his fault," Schiano said. "I have to see the tape. I don't think (the fumble) was his fault. But the interceptions, that's an issue. We will look at them and see why they happened and figure out what we need to do to eliminate them."

Schiano said he has a plan to play Teel this season "but it's not one I'm willing to make public yet."

"I have ideas. I have all the ideas that you can probably think of and then some," he added. "But his performance will dictate (how much he plays)."

Through the two scrimmages, Teel is a combined 17-for-33 for 281 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Hart is a combined 13-for-30 for 153 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions.

Yet Teel really isn't competing for a job, since it belongs to Hart.

"I feel more like I'm competing against myself and against last Tuesday when we scrimmaged," Teel said. "I felt like I needed to do some things and go through the offense a little better. I thought I did that. So I'm really competing against myself."

But the position will be Teel's someday. It's just a matter of when. Both players know that, yet both say it has not made for an awkward or uncomfortable situation.

"Not at all," said Teel. "Both Ryan and I have done a real good job this summer in this situation. We're together every day. We go to meetings together. We help each other out. We were in our dorm room (Friday night) going over (hand) signals for (yesterday) so we'd be okay when I was giving them to him and when he was giving them to me.

"I think it's a good relationship."