Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Columbia Latest With FBS QB

A story in The Bootleg confirms that Stanford quarterback Brett Nottingham has made his transfer to Columbia official. Nottingham had been thought to have the inside track at replacing Andrew Luck with the Cardinal until coach David Shaw decided on starting Josh Nunes. From The Bootleg:

"That move came as a surprise to many, particularly after Nottingham had out-performed Nunes statistically in open exhibitions at Stanford's spring game and in the final preseason scrimmage. But Shaw said his decision was rooted in Nunes' ability to better avoid negative plays and manage Stanford's offense, and not on Nottingham's superior arm strength and athleticism."
The San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate blog also has a story about the transfer, who threw for 7,467 yards and 91 touchdowns as one of the top high school quarterbacks in the nation.

Nottingham, who will have two years of eligibility at Columbia, was 10-of-16 for 100 yards and one touchdown in eight games with the Cardinal. Anticipation of transfer was first reported on Jake Novak's Roar Lions blog more than a week ago.
Nottingham joins a list of recent FBS quarterback transfers that has included Nebraska's Patrick Witt to Yale, Duke's Matt Rader to Penn, Northwestern's Gavin Hoffman to Penn, LSU's Andrew Hatch to Harvard (after starting his career at Harvard) and Purdue's Bill Foran to Princeton (although he wasn't technically referred to as a transfer). Ryan Becker, who walked on at Florida State in 2009, played in 15 games at Penn the next two seasons before missing last fall due to injury and should have another year.

Dartmouth has had a couple of transfer quarterbacks from FBS schools in the not-too-distant past. Wisconsin's Scott Wille '04 transferred to Dartmouth and lettered for the Big Green in 2002 but quit the team after the second game of the 2003 season. Jerry Singleton '96, played for Dartmouth in 1994 after redshirting at Colorado State. His career was ended by injury. (Click pictures to enlarge.)