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Rutgers football hosted an intriguing visitor this weekend, as TCU graduate transfer Zach Allen was on campus and in attendance for the skills camp on Saturday.  The news was first reported by Todderick Hunt in a recap here of the potential recruits who were at the camp. More detail of Allen’s visit was covered below by 247 Sports.

Allen was rated a 3-star recruit from the class of 2013 and starred at Temple high school in Texas, where he was a dual threat quarterback. According to 247 sports, Allen had offers from Minnesota, Syracuse, and New Mexico among others, but he ultimately committed to TCU. After not making much progress moving up the depth chart, with star quarterback Trevone Boykin firmly entrenched as the starter, Allen converted to wide receiver for the 2015 season registering one catch, and was the team’s placeholder on kicks.

After graduating from TCU in just three years, Allen now has two seasons of eligibility remaining and can play immediately.  This weekend was considered an official visit by Allen and there have been no other scheduled visits for him reported. While he never made an impact at TCU, he showed promise as a star quarterback in Texas high school football.  He passed for over 2,000 yards his senior season and rushed for over 900 yards.  He threw 24 touchdowns and rushed for 9 touchdowns. He also was an Elite 11 finalist in 2012. On this reddit thread, TCU fans described Allen as quick and athletic.

In rebuilding the program, there is no doubt that head coach Chris Ash and his staff are considering every option that is potentially available to them. Hosting Allen makes sense, as he has experience running the spread offense and was a legitimate dual threat quarterback in high school.  Even though he didn’t play much at quarterback at TCU, he surely benefited from playing under offensive guru and head coach Gary Patterson. Allen seems to be a mature kid to have graduated from college in just three years. He also appears to be a class act, as he issued this statement in May when he announced he was transferring.

If he commits to Rutgers, it’s because he will have an opportunity to win the starting job. Having two years of eligibility remaining thickens the plot as well, which is the same amount of time that Chris Laviano and Hayden Rettig have remaining. The quarterback battle for the 2016 season may get very interesting, very soon. Here is a clip from the 2014 season with Allen running the read option and pitching it out to the running back for a touchdown. Also below are highlights from his junior season at Temple high school in Texas.