It appears that Rutgers might have a little bit of momentum in recruiting one of the nation’s top quarterback prospects.

On Friday night, four-star quarterback recruit Nicco Marchiol of Chandler, AZ released his final four schools. Rutgers, alongside Arizona State, Florida, and Florida State made the cut.

It was a bit curious to see the Scarlet Knights, who have had difficulty recruiting at quarterback for a decade now, make the final cut for a player ranked No. 193 in the nation and the sixth-best pro-style quarterback according to 247Sports.

The surprise over the inclusion of Rutgers has less to do with the program making the cut as the fact that Marchiol has no ties to the program and didn’t even include Rutgers in the eight programs he released several weeks ago.

So to see Rutgers jump into the final four after not being in the cutdown to eight programs a few weeks ago shows that the Scarlet Knights are perhaps surging a bit.

Rutgers hasn’t landed a big-time quarterback recruit of this caliber since Tom Savage, a four-star recruit and a U.S. Army All-American, committed to the program in 2009.  Savage went on to have a four-year career in the NFL with the Houston Texans.

On paper, it would seem a stretch to see Marchiol potentially landing at Rutgers given the prestige of the other three programs on the list.

One thing working in favor of Rutgers in this recruitment is the path to playing time. Among Marchiol’s final four programs, Rutgers is the only one to not land a quarterback commit for the class of 2021.

If playing early is important for Marchiol, then Rutgers might be an attractive option.

The Scarlet Knights were 3-6 this year in the return year for head coach Greg Schiano, who had originally been defensive coordinator at Ohio State and, prior to that, head coach in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One of Schiano’s major moves last offseason was to land respected offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson from Oklahoma State as part of his coaching staff.