Former Arizona/Rutgers Quarterback Tom Savage To Join Panthers In 2013 (Maybe)

After a few weeks of deafening silence, the news is finally out that former Rutgers/Arizona quarterback Tom Savage is headed to Pitt. I hadn't forgotten about this story, there was just nothing out there on it.

Back in May, there were a set of pretty cryptic tweets from Savage about Pitt, which kind of came out of the blue. Savage was, at one time, a recruit Pitt was after before he ended up at Rutgers.

As I wrote then, getting Savage would at the very least, mean a bit of competition of Chad Voytik, Trey Anderson, and Mark Myers in 2013. Let's not get crazy here - Savage is no star. He was beaten out at Rutgers by a guy (Chas Dodd) who was beaten out by True freshman, Gary Nova, this past year. But what Savage will do is provide some healthy competition.

We're all expecting Voytik to take over next year, but the very real fact is that he'll still only be a true sophomore or redshirt freshman. With only one year in the system under his belt, it might be a bit premature to declare him as the guaranteed starter next season.

The hope is that he can be ready to step it, but the chance exists that he might not.

Savage will, at the very least, push some guys. Trey Anderson, to me, is still the guy that doesn't really fit. He could surprise us, of course, and get past Mark Myers, but his days of starting look extremely bleak. I'd be surprised if the chance was even there this year because, frankly, I don't expect Tino Sunseri to be that bad.

But back to 2013. Savage will have the most experience of any quarterback on the roster, but Andrea Adelson over at ESPN has an important piece of news - Savage might not even be able play at Pitt due to a Big East rule.

The rule, according to Adelson, states that players cannot join another conference school. Since he played at Rutgers, if Pitt is somehow still in the Big East in 2013, he wouldn't be able to suit up.

I fully expect Pitt to be ACC-bound by the end of this year, so that should be a moot point. Apparently Savage feels the same way, too. But man, talk about taking at least a small risk.

And here's the thing - I really have a hard time figuring out why Savage would decide to come to Pitt. He could become the guaranteed starter for any number of smaller schools, and even if he went down to the FCS level, he would still get noticed by NFL scouts based on his track record in Division I. Coming to Pitt is really a bit of a gamble unless he's simply so enamored with the school. Plenty of better opportunities to play exist elsewhere and it makes little sense to me why he would want to compete for a job when he could be handed one.

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