Big Ten has become a landing zone for transfer quarterbacks

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Big Ten has become a landing zone for transfer quarterbacks

2024-10-09 00:47 Last Updated At：00:51

PISCATAWAY, N.J. (AP) — Bret Bielema was at the forefront of the graduate transfer game in 2011 when the NCAA passed a new rule that allowed athletes in all sports to transfer and gain immediate eligibility without a waiver as long as they were enrolled in graduate school.

Needing a quarterback at Wisconsin because of an unexpected illness to Jon Budmayr and an ACL injury to his backup, Bielema and the Badgers found future NFL player Russell Wilson looking for a new home.

Russell was going to return to NC State for a graduate year, but he also wanted to play baseball. He was a fourth-round pick of the Colorado Rockies and spent two seasons in the minors. He missed spring camp in 2011 and Wolfpack coach Tom O'Brien said he could return but not as a starter. So he transferred to Wisconsin and had a monster season, leading the Badgers and Bielema to an 11-3 record and a Rose Bowl berth.

Much has changed in the last 13 years. Bielema left Wisconsin, went to Arkansas for five years, worked in the NFL for three years and then became the head coach at Illinois in 2021. Budmayr recovered and is now the wide receivers coach at Iowa.

That's not all that changed. So has the transfer rule. It's open to everyone. Looking for more playing time, unhappy where they're at, there's always the portal.

The Big Ten has become a landing zone for quarterbacks on the move. When this season opened, 14 of the 18 teams in the expanded conference had transfer quarterbacks starting. The expectations at the time were Drew Allar at No. 4 Penn State, Davis Warren at No. 24 Michigan, Miller Moss at Southern California and freshman Dylan Raiola at Nebraska.

Warren has been replaced twice with transfer Jack Tuttle expected to start their next game on Oct. 19.

No. 2 Ohio State is led by Will Howard (Kansas State). No. 3 Oregon has Dillon Gabriel (Central Florida, Oklahoma). No. 18 Indiana has Kurtis Rourke (Ohio) and Bielema and No. 23 Illinois have Luke Altmyer (Mississippi).

The days of wooing a high school quarterback, signing him to a national letter of intent and then having him around for five years have declined drastically.

“So I think the definition of what we think is normal is now gone,” Bielema said last week. "The new normal is to be able to get a quarterback that you need to play right now.”

That's what Greg Schiano did at Rutgers in starting his second stint with Scarlet Knights in 2020. He got Nebraska transfer Noah Vedral for a couple of years and now has Athan Kaliakmanis from Minnesota. Neither was considered a superstar but both fit into his team-first culture.

“O-Line and quarterback are the hardest positions,” said Schiano, whose Scarlet Knights are off to a 4-1 start. “So if you can look at it, this guy’s already done it at this level or a level like ours, it really decreases your kind of miss rate and it increases your hit rate.”

Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell, whose team faces Rutgers this weekend in New Jersey, said a big reason for the influx of transfer quarterbacks is the number of coaching changes in the conference. Nine of the coaches have been hired since 2023, the year Fickell went from Cincinnati to the Badgers.

“I don’t know that it’s going away,” Fickell said. “I think this position in particular, everybody understands and knows that in football — I don’t care if it’s college football, NFL football, high school football — the quarterback position is critical in everything that we do. There’s not many teams today that can get by without having a guy at that position who can make plays and run an offense.”

Wisconsin started the season with Miami transfer Tyler Van Dyke, who was hurt in a loss to Alabama. He has been replaced by Braedyn Locke, a Mississippi State transfer.

In taking over the job at Indiana, new coach Curt Cignetti brought along 13 players and 12 coaches and support from his 2023 team at James Madison. He also added Rourke, the Mid-American Conference offensive player of the year. He leads the Big Ten with 1,752 yards passing, 14 TDs and two interceptions. The Hoosiers are 6-0.

With the transferring, there are some players who are content to stay put. Allar wanted stability and he saw that in choosing the Nittany Lions, who had just given coach James Franklin a new 10-year contract the summer before his senior year in high school.

“I always wanted to find as a recruit, somewhere where I can go and develop and not have to leave,” Allar said, noting while coordinators may change, the concept usually doesn't change much if the coach stays.

While Allar understudied for Sean Clifford, Raiola has stepped into the starting role as a freshman at Nebraska. He's a workaholic, gym rat who devours minutia. And he's not afraid to take control and lead.

“Dylan’s going to play," Huskers coach Matt Rhule said. “He’s going to play the plays. When we call drop back, he’s going to drop back, he’s going to go back there and take his drop, go through his progression. Just how we want him to play when he’s a junior, we’re going to start day one that way. We’re not easing into anything.”

That's the exception though in the Big Ten. Most quarterbacks aren't freshman. They're older and starting over.

AP Sports Writers Larry Lage, Eric Olson and Steve Megargee contributed to this report.

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Stock market today: Wall Street holds firmer after Hong Kong stocks fall to worst day since 2008

2024-10-09 00:49 Last Updated At：00:50

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are steadying themselves on Tuesday as falling oil prices release some of the pressure that’s built up on the market.

The S&P 500 was 0.8% higher in afternoon trading and clawing back most of its loss from the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 96 points, or 0.2%, and likewise nearing its record set last week, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% higher, as of 12:41 p.m. Eastern time.

Wall Street held firm even though stock markets around the world sank following scary swings in China, as euphoria about possible stimulus for the world’s second-largest economy gave way to disappointment. Stocks tumbled 9.4% in Hong Kong for their worst day since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Helping to support Wall Street was a sharp drawdown in oil prices. They gave back some of the big recent gains they made on worries that worsening tensions in the Middle East could ultimately lead to disruptions in the flow of oil.

A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 4.5% to $77.28. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, eased 5.1% to $73.25.

Pressure coming from the bond market on the stock market also leveled off a bit. Treasury yields were holding steadier, a day after they shot to their highest levels since the summer.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.02% from 4.03% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with overnight interest rates, edged down to 3.96% from 3.99%, late Monday, though it's still near its highest level since August.

When Treasurys are paying higher yields, investors generally become less willing to pay very high prices for stocks and other investments. And Treasury yields have been storming higher over the last week following a suite of reports showing the U.S. economy may be healthier than expected.

Such reports, including one last week showing much stronger hiring by U.S. employers than forecast, raise hopes that the economy will avoid a recession. But they also force traders to ratchet back expectations for how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by, now that it has widened its focus to include keeping the economy humming instead of just fighting high inflation.

Traders have abandoned expectations for the Fed to cut its main interest rate by a larger-than-usual half of a percentage point at its next meeting, for example. Instead, they’re largely betting on a traditional-sized cut of a quarter of a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. Some are even betting on a small possibility the Fed could keep its main rate steady in November.

On Wall Street, PepsiCo rose 0.7% after delivering stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue fell short.

CEO Ramon Laguarta also said the company now expects a “low single-digit” increase in an important measure of revenue for the year after it had earlier forecast growth of about 4%. U.S. consumers continue to pull back on buying snacks and drinks after years of price increases.

DocuSign jumped 7.9% after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the electronic document signing company would join its S&P MidCap 400 index. DocuSign will replace MDU Resources, which will be bumped down to the S&P SmallCap 600 after announcing last week that it was spinning off its construction services subsidiary, Everus Construction Group.

On the losing end of Wall Street were oil-and-gas companies, which gave back some of their big recent gains driven by the jump in crude prices. Chevron fell 1.9% and was one of the bigger reasons the Dow was lagging other indexes.

In stock markets abroad, trading in mainland China reopened following a national holiday. Before, indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen had surged on hopes for stimulus from the government and the central bank meant to prop up the economy’s flagging growth.

On Tuesday, China’s economic planning agency outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but it refrained from major spending initiatives. That helped lead to the 9.4% drop for the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong.

In Shanghai, where the market had been closed as Hong Kong ran higher over the last week, stocks rose 4.6% following their reopening.

The disappointment in China had worldwide effects, knocking down stocks of companies in Europe, the United States and elsewhere that do lots of business in and around China. Estee Lauder fell 2.3%, for example, while Wynn Resorts lost 2%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach and Zen Soo contributed.