Santa Margarita senior John Gazzaniga has the profile of a quarterback prospect, yet he’s not sure where he will take his next snap.
There were football players, including quarterbacks, who signed with colleges on Wednesday, on what has been known as National Signing Day for college recruits. Gazzaniga was not part of that group.
He is 6-foot-7, 230 pounds with a powerful arm. He possesses plenty of speed and quickness for a football player of his size. He is athletic, too, having been a starting forward for the school’s varsity basketball team.
Gazzaniga was an All-Trinity League second-team selection at Santa Margarita this past season when he completed 59 percent of his passes for 1,938 yards and 15 touchdowns with nine interceptions in 12 games and was the team’s second-leading rusher.
But he is not getting the sort of college football recruiting attention that one might expect.
The loosening of college football’s transfer rules have created a shortage of scholarship opportunities for high school football players. College coaches might figure that offering a scholarship to a high school kid is a gamble, when there is a tried-and-tested college player available on the other side of the transfer portal.
“The transfer portal has messed up college football recruiting,” said Gazzaniga, whose voice is not the only voice saying so. High school coaches are saying the same.
Gazzaniga might be a case study of the effect the college football transfer portal has had on high school football. He had offers from only two NCAA Division I programs, Akron and University of Massachusetts. But then coaching changes at both schools erased those offers. Gazzaniga also noted that a Miami of Ohio scholarship offer wound up going to a local Ohio high school quarterback.
So community college might be his destination. It can lead to four-year college opportunities in a couple of years.
Trey Kukuk was an outstanding quarterback at Capistrano Valley, did not get scholarship offers to his liking, went to Saddleback College and recently he signed with Louisiana Tech.
“(Community) college always has been an amazing route,” Gazzaniga said. “But it’s even better now with the college football rulings that have come out and the rulings that might come out.”
Gazzaniga, who played at Orange Lutheran before transferring to Santa Margarita, said he has heard from Orange County community college football programs, and he is considering community college football in another state.
“My phone is always open to colleges to see if I’ll get the opportunity to go straight from high school to a Division I situation,” he said. “I’ve always had the idea that any football is the right football, so that’s where I’m at right now.”
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