Illinois coach Lovie Smith has named senior quarterback A.J. Bush, Jr. the starter under center for Saturday’s road test at Rutgers, according to 247Sports.

Bush began the season atop the Fighting Illini’s depth chart, but suffered a hamstring injury at the end of the second quarter of a Week 2 win against Western Illinois. Freshman M.J. Rivers II filled in and kept the offense afloat during his absence, completing 63 percent of his passes for 422 yards, three touchdowns with only one interception but went 0-2 as a starter against USF and Penn State.

“AJ is our guy,” Smith said. “I’m not going to pull a guy because he got injured. He had a great camp and did some good things and he’s our guy, but MJ has shown me that if something does happen to him, he can be the guy as well. He’s played well enough. We got a good situation going forward. Knock on wood, no more injuries happen, but if something happened, MJ would be ready to roll and if something happened to him, Matt (Robinson) would be ready to roll.”

Illinois (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten) and Rutgers (1-4, 0-2) will kick off at noon EST on the Big Ten Network.