Rutgers’ Tim Wright Feels Back To His Old Self
By Matt Sugam
PISCATAWAY – After a stellar spring in 2010, Tim Wright was poised to have a breakout season. The then redshirt sophmore was supposed to be the dynamic receiver opposite Mohamed Sanu.
That was until that August — a week into training camp — when Tim Wright tore his ACL. Wright sat out the season only to see Mark Harrison do what he was supposed to do.
Last season, Wright came back, but wasn’t the same guy he was a couple springs ago. Admittedly, his knee wasn’t what it once was prior to the injury, nagging him throughout the season.
Two years later the 6-foot-4, 220-pounder is fully recovered and getting back to his old form.
“I definitely feel back to like I used to,” Wright said. “And now that I’m being more productive on offense, it makes me feel better inside. It makes me feel better mentally that I can go out there and produce and help this team win.”
Which is exactly what he did Thursday night vs. USF. The Wall, NJ native had a career-high eight catches for 125 yards. Last year he had just 11 catches for 147 yards.
“It was nothing really different,” Wright said. “Just being focused. Having a little more trust in the quarterback. The quarterback [Gary Nova] having a little more trust in me and we were just able to hook up on a lot of the third down conversions and it felt good. We got into a rhythm and we just kept using it.”
And Nova kept using Wright on third down. Of his 10 completions on third down — which resulted in eight first downs — Wright was on the receiving end of five of them, all of which were for first down.
“It did feel pretty good. Having that game. Having a career game,” Wright said. “I had to battle through a lot of adversity and just going out there and trusting in my teammates and having my teammates trust and me and try and be the man that steps ups for the offense and it felt really good.”
While the game may seem like an aberration, Wright knows things are going to change from week to week. Sure, he’d like to average the amount of yards and catches he had Thursday night for the entire season, but he knows that may not be the case.
With the likes of Brandon Coleman, Mark Harrison, Quoran Pratt, D.C. Jefferson and so on, Nova has tons of talent to distribute the ball to. And the sophomore gunslinger isn’t going to play favorites. He’ll go to what the defense gives him.
“I think the defense dictates a lot [of where the ball goes to],” Wright said. “But just having four, five, six wide receivers that’s all good, it’s no way you can game plan to try and stop somebody because somebody else is going to get it.
We don’t really know who most of the balls are going to go to in a practice in a week, but just when that game time comes, we just got to step up and we all have to play on the same level and once we do that, there’s no stopping us.”
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