Following the team’s 36-28 win over West Chester this past weekend, a senior member of Slippery Rock football has decided to part ways with the team.
Senior quarterback Zack Newsock has quit the Rock team. Newsock has been a four-year member of the team, appearing in 26 games over that time.
Newsock has served primarily as a backup in his time at The Rock, and again this year he was backing up graduate transfer quarterback, Don King III, who had won the starting quarterback job out of camp. When Newsock has seen the field he has completed 200 of 337 passes for 2,357 yards and 20 touchdowns.
Rock head coach, Shawn Lutz, said that Newsock did not believe he would have an opportunity to start moving forward, and instead of staying on as a backup, he decided to just walk away from the team.
“I always tell all of our guys ‘you don’t have to like what your role is, but you have to have a good attitude’,” Lutz said. “We really did believe we had two capable guys (at quarterback) and that we were going to need him at some point of the season.”
The departure of Newsock leaves four quarterbacks left on the roster: King, junior Youngstown state transfer Tanner Garry, true freshman Nathaniel Musselman and Augustus Necastro, none of whom were on the team last year.
Lutz says Musselman will step up into the main backup role behind King and hopes to get him some playing time against the University of Lock Haven this Saturday.
