Maryland's Coach Impressed With Wisconsin Freshman QB Ryan Hopkins: 'He's a Really Good Quarterback'

Wisconsin turned to true freshman quarterback Ryan Hopkins last week after it benched Colton Joseph against Iowa in the midst of a 30-0 blowout loss.

That turned out to be unequivocally the right move; not only did Hopkins operate the Badgers' offense fluently to the tune of 241 passing yards and three touchdowns on 75 percent completion, he displayed poise and arm strength that we simply hadn't seen out of his predecessor Colon Joseph.

Though head coach Luke Fickell still dangled the idea of working Colton Joseph into the Maryland game in certain packages and situations, he gave a clear answer this week: Hopkins will remain the Badgers' starter.

Folks around the Big Ten took note of Hopkins' performance; the quarterback earned freshman of the week honors for his outing against the Scarlet Knights.

Someone else who took note of Hopkins? The interim head coach of the Badgers' next opponent. Maryland's Aazaar Abdul-Rahim, who is two games into his interim tenure replacing the fired Mike Locksley had high praise for the true freshman gunslinger.

Abdul-Rahim impressed by Hopkins' starting debut

Maryland Terrapins interim head coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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“I think he’s a really good quarterback. You see a level of poise for someone who has not played a lot of football. He doesn’t look inexperienced, he doesn’t look rattled," he said. "I think they do a good job, which you should do with a freshman quarterback, of trying to make his reads as easy as possible...And obviously, they did a good job on the plus side of taking shots and him throwing downfield. And they were successful last week.”

While perhaps insinuating the Hopkins wasn't running the most complex offense in his starting debut, which is certainly not wrong, Abdul-Rahim noticed what was impossible to ignore from Hopkins' first game as a starter; it didn't look like is first game as a starter. His poise and maturity were palpable.

True freshman debuts, especially at quarterback, can be all over the place. An immensely physically gifted gunslinger could look all kinds of erratic in his debut, simply because he hasn't caught up to the speed of the game and the mental side of things. That wasn't the case for Hopkins at all.

Abdul-Rahim concerned with other aspects of Wisconsin's offense

Though the coach had lofty praise for Hopkins, he also insisted that beating the Badgers starts with shutting down the running game.

“As a player, I’ve played against Wisconsin. They have a set culture. They are who they are. And their culture is, they're gonna run the ball. They’re gonna establish a running mentality. So that is probably more of how we need to set the tone," he continued. "The run game will allow (Hopkins') decision-making to be pretty good."

Hopkins gives the Badgers' offense the kind of passing attack it hasn't had in a while. But Abdul-Rahim is right in that slowing down Wisconsin's ground game — which hasn't been all that hard for Big Ten opponents to do — will be key in knocking Hopkins out of his rhythm.

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