RU Football: Former Quarterback Tom Savage Commits to Arizona

After an offseason of turmoil for Tom Savage, the quarterback looks like he has found his new home. 

Savage signed his transfer papers with the University of Arizona on Thursday, Feb. 17. 

He will be officially declared a student this summer, and will be eligible to play football in 2012. 

Savage is currently not attending school this spring semester, opting to focus strictly on finding a new school to resume his playing career sooner than later.

This decision is a bit of a shocker, since Savage and his father were publicly in a dispute over Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano’s conditional release.

In a nutshell, Tom Savage Sr., the quarterback’s father, stated that Schiano only approved about “11 or 12” of the 20 or so schools his son was interested in. 

He was also famously misquoted for calling Schiano “a dictator”, with the elder Savage claiming that his actual comment was that “I don’t like anyone to dictate where my son can play football or go to college.”

Miami and Florida seemed to be the top schools that were off limits to the 2009 Freshman All-American, and fortunes did not seem like they were going to change when a Rutgers appeals committee upheld Schiano’s decision at the end of January.

However, after “extensive talks” with his former signal caller, Schiano finally decided that Savage should be allowed to talk to any school he wanted.

For the record, Schiano’s side of the story was that he allowed Savage to talk to 17 of the 25 schools he had in mind.

After all this mess, Savage ironically chose the Arizona Wildcats as his new squad, despite Arizona being one of the teams he was allowed to meet with initially. 

Arizona was also the only school the sophomore visited, so obviously the coaching staff made a lasting impression on the young player. 

Wildcats head coach Mike Stoops called Savage "a great addition to our recruiting class" since “it gives us a game-experienced quarterback to compete in the near future."

Early in the transfer process, Savage made some comments along the lines of, if you’re a player, obviously you want to be a competitor. 

These comments were curious as he seemed completely unwilling to compete with Rutgers quarterbacks Chas Dodd and Gary Nova this offseason. 

In 2012, it is unlikely that the quarterback situation will be any more favorable for Savage.

He will by no means be guaranteed to start, as Daxx Garman and Matt Scott wait in the wings after current starter Nick Foles graduates next year.

Arizona looked strong in 2010 going 7-1 through October, but the Wildcats took a nose dive from November on, losing five straight.