By BRIAN LEWIS
Rutgers will be playing its 139th year of college football, and never have the Scarlet Knights landed a prospect as ballyhooed as Tom Savage. That looks like it’s about to change, as the rising senior QB is expected to verbal to RU in a press conference tomorrow at Cardinal O’Hara H.S. in Springfield, Pa.
Savage is the sixth-ranked quarterback and 24th-rated player overall in the Class of 2009 by rivals.com. Check out the video and it’s easy to see whyhttp://rutgers.rivals.com/video.asp?section=fbrecruit&pkey=57390&vidtype=prospect&vidid=103770; and both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Delaware County Times reported on their websites that he’s RU-bound.
Granted, RU did get 15th-rated DT Nate Robinson from Irvington in 2003, but there are no eligibility issues with Savage, a blue-chip quarterback with a 3.4 GPA and the kind of pied-piper cache to get other players to follow. And with the spring game Saturday, he’ll have plenty of other recruits to recruit.
The 6-4, 231-lb. Savage reportedly picked the Scarlet Knights over a Who’s Who of college football bluebloods: Georgia, Michigan, Tennessee, Miami, FSU, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Virginia. Apparently local school Penn State didn’t make the cut.
A broken foot cost him five games as a junior, but he rebounded to be named MVP of the All-American Combine in San Antonio. Rutgers coach Greg Schiano recruited Savage’s older brother Bryan _ who signed with Wisconsin and now starts at Hofstra _ and landed at Cardinal O’Hara in a helicopter while recruiting Savage.
By the way, no, he’s not related to the Tom Savage that led Rutgers to the NCAA tournament under Bob Wenzel.