Name: KEATON STUDSRUD
School: Benilde St. Margaret’s – St. Louis Park, MN (Coaches Jon Hanks & Patrick Krieger)
Vitals: Quarterback (#23). 6’1″ – 185.
Offers: South Alabama, PWO’s from Northern Illinois and Minnesota.
UND received a verbal commitment from quarterback Keaton Studrud on Sunday after spending the weekend in Grand Forks on an official visit. Studsrud is best described as a “dual-threat quarterback” and his statistics from this past season certainly back that up.
Studsrud threw for 1,555 yards and ran for 797 yards. He was fairly accurate, going 101-178 (57%) with 18 TDs vs. 8 INT’s. He also ran for 10 TD’s. Overall, he led the Red Knights offense to an impressive 37.0 pts/game and 426 total yds/game average. Studsrud is also a baseball standout and had multiple opportunities to play that sport collegiately.
Studsrud worked mostly out of the shotgun/pistol in high school and naturally, as most teams do these days, ran the zone-read scheme where he was able to show his running ability. In the passing game, he shows good arm strength and solid mechanics, has a quick release, no real windup in his motion. However, as a pure QB prospect in the Big Sky, he will need to grow, learn, and develop his craft and progress as the signal-caller. Right now, he is just an athlete playing QB. It will take him some time to get the mental side of things down and learn how to have pocket presence.
Listed at 6’1″, it shows the UND offensive staff doesn’t mind Studsrud’s perceived lack of prototypical height and that they are going to run an offense that can cater to his type of skill set. As we have seen in the Big Sky, smaller ‘system QBs’ can and have been very successful when utilized to their strengths. We do not know what the offensive scheme is yet but our best guess will be both a pistol and under-center based scheme where the QB runs the ball on designed plays.
At this point, we would fully expect Studsrud to redshirt, barring any significant injuries to the UND QB depth chart. He will definitely need the whole year to mature physically and mentally.
(photo courtesy of aspirebeverages.com)
