The 2022 Rice football recruiting class has added one more from the Transfer Portal, securing a commitment from former Rutgers linebacker Chris Conti.
While the team was getting work on the field, the Rice football recruiting staff was continuing to seek out every opportunity they could find to improve the roster before the real games arrived this fall. The Owls have hit the Transfer Portal once again, securing a commitment from former Rutgers linebacker Chris Conti.
As has become a somewhat common occurrence with the loosened transfer restrictions and the added year of eligibility because of the COVID season, Conti has plenty of eligibility remaining. The third-year player will have three years of eligibility when he arrived at South Main for workouts this summer after redshirting as a true freshman in 2019.
A later entrant to the portal, Conti missed the first wave of post-regular season entrants in December because of Rutgers’ haphazard offseason. The Scarlett Knights were the “backup team” that filled in a vacated spot in the Gator Bowl after Texas A&M announced it would be unable to play. Bowl prep delayed Conti’s departure, but by that time, he’d already made his decision to move on.
Conti picked Rice over offers from UConn, UMass, Rhode Island and several Patriot League schools. In his own words, Rice was “kind of an opportunity that you really can’t turn down.”
He joins a room that will feature a wide array of players of various levels of experience. Conti, along with incoming transfer Cam Dillion from Columbia will help solidify a group that already returns two part-time starters from last year’s roster, Aidan Siano and Myron Morrison.
Premium: Rice Football Recruiting Offer and Commitment Tracker
Conti hasn’t compiled much on the film side since his senior year of high school when he posted 111 tackles in the season. He appeared in 12 games at Rutgers over the span of three seasons, seeing the bulk of his time with the special teams unit. Still, his experience in the game is something he believes will give him an advantage in this next step.
Conti told The Roost he’s already familiar with some of the sort of plays the Rie defense runs, noting a few overlapping concepts between the defenses. “Once I get in there I think I’ll learn it pretty fast,” he said. Conti is expected to join the team when summer workouts begin in June.
Become a Patron!
