Why Rutgers QB Athan Kaliakmanis was center of attention after big win over Minnesota

As the final seconds ticked off the clock at SHI Stadium, soon after he rose out of the victory formation against Minnesota, Athan Kaliakmanis was surrounded on all sides.
They flocked toward the Rutgers quarterback from all over the field, everyone wanting to get a second of his attention after he led the Scarlet Knights to an emotional 26-19 win over his former team.
It started with many of his former Golden Gopher teammates, who dapped him up and hit his helmet and hugged him as though they were still together on the same side. There were so many of them to greet that Kaliakmanis missed the beginning of head coach Greg Schiano’s impromptu huddle on the far sideline.
“That meant everything to me, if you want the honest truth,” Kaliakmanis said. “They all came up to me, it was like the entire team. But that just shows that it wasn’t on bad terms. I left and we still talk to each other. I still care about those guys. I’m somewhere else, but I still care about them, and I still have relationships with them.”
When the huddle broke, Schiano embraced his quarterback before they both headed over for a postgame interview with NBC. While the coach spoke to sideline reporter Caroline Pineda, Kaliakmanis hugged his father Alex, sharing a moment they won’t soon forget.
The quarterback then handed him the game ball he was holding in his left arm since the final play of the game.
“This ball is going with all my other sports memorabilia,” Alex Kaliakmanis told NJ Advance Media, “but this gonna be my pride and joy. I’m just really, really happy and that’s probably an understatement of how I truly feel.”
Kaliakmanis hugged his older brother Dino, who transferred with him to Rutgers from Minnesota this offseason, and shared a moment with offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, who recruited him to Minneapolis and Piscataway.
At one point, Minnesota coach PJ Fleck found his former quarterback to share a message.
“He told me that he was happy for me, and that meant a lot to me to hear from him,” Kaliakmanis said. “He went out of his way and came up to me and told me that he was happy for me and happy for what I’ve been doing. I’m really happy for him, too, and I had a great relationship with him for three years.”
After wrapping up his own interview with NBC and before he headed up the tunnel to the locker room — where his current teammates held him up in celebration — Kaliakmanis shared a moment with his head coach and his father.
“Nothing was really said (in that hug), but nothing needed to be said,” Alex Kaliakmanis said. “It was just an enormous amount of happiness and jubilation. The team won. We won a big game.”
The Scarlet Knights won in part thanks to a solid showing from Kaliakmanis, who finished with 240 yards, three touchdowns and an interception on 17-of-33 passing (51.5%).
The quarterback completed 14 of his 18 attempts, including a career-high 65-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Ian Strong. He threw for 211 yards and two touchdowns in the first three drives of the game, handing Rutgers 14-9 lead in the second quarter.
“We were just responding really well to each other in the passing game and offensive game,” Kaliakmanis said. “We were balanced. We were throwing the ball, making the routine plays, and that’s something I got to be able to do that the entire game, and that’s something I need to work on. I need to be able to do that the entire game.”
Kaliakmanis had plenty to learn from Saturday’s game. He completed just three of his final 15 pass attempts — including a back-breaking interception at Minnesota’s 9-yard line — in the final 35 minutes as the Scarlet Knights struggled to move the ball in the second half. But his final completion — a four-yard pass to Strong — proved to be the game-winning play.
The up-and-down game came at the end of what had the potential to be a roller-coaster week for Kaliakmanis, who was facing his former coach PJ Fleck and multiple former teammates for the first time.
He admits it was “a really unique experience” to see them on the opposite side after spending the first three seasons of his college career in Minneapolis, starting 12 games for them last fall before electing to transfer last offseason. While Schiano praised Kaliakmanis for his ability to “compartmentalize perfectly” this week, the quarterback now admits it was “hard.”
“I had relationships with those guys, too. I played there. I lived there for three years,” Kaliakmanis said. “I’d say that it was just awesome to share the field with them again, and then with this new team that we have now, and the relationships I’ve built here, and being able to play with the guys that I’ve built relationships from here, it was awesome.”
Kaliakmanis overcame the emotions and helped his new team earn a much-needed victory that snaps a four-game losing streak and puts the Scarlet Knights back on track to make a second consecutive bowl game.
After he shook hands with former teammates and coaches, he embraced his new life in Piscataway and the possibilities they still have together.
“These last four weeks really tested us as a team, but we stayed together,” Kaliakmanis said. “We did it out of love for each other. Today, it was for each other. It wasn’t for anybody else. We just kept chopping.”
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Brian Fonseca may be reached at [email protected].