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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Posted by DCS

The mighty University of Rhode Island football team will apparently see an influx of transfers from Rutgers this coming season. According to Kyle Town of the Good Five Cent Cigar (URI student newspaper), backup quarterback Chris Paul-Etienne, tight end Tom Lang, wide receiver Robenson Alexis, and defensive back Rob Cervini are all coming to the Football Championship Subdivision program.

URI head coach Darren Rizzi was an associate head coach under Greg Schiano at Rutgers from 2006-07, so this pipeline is not all that much of surprise. Of the transfers, Paul-Etienne and Cervini stick out the most in my mind. Paul-Etienne was the primary backup to Mike Teel at one point this season, but eventually fell out of favor with Schiano when Dom Natale replaced him in the pecking order. That being said, I would think that Paul-Etienne would have had a solid opportunity to compete for the starting job this season along with Natale and incoming freshman phenom Tom Savage, now that Teel is graduating. Cervini, who was a program walk-on, gained some notoriety in this year's Papajohns.com Bowl when he scored Rutgers' first points of the game on a fake field goal play.

It's significant that Darren Rizzi managed to poach four players from his former employer in the first year he was able to do so. It will be interesting to see if this becomes an annual right of passage for disgruntled Scarlet Knight footballers in years to come.

What else is going on?:

at 10:31 AM  

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