By now, everybody knows the connection between the New York Giants and their current starting quarterback, Tommy DeVito. A born-and-raised New Jersey kid getting the chance to be under center for his hometown team is a Hollywood-worthy story that may be too unrealistic for producers to believe.
Despite the unlikeliness of a career panning out that way, it is DeVito’s current reality, and one has got to imagine that he is soaking every minute of it in. However, to get to this point he had to lay the groundwork in college to even get on the NFL’s radar, and his road to get there was an interesting one.
A Look Back at Tommy DeVito’s College Career
Coming out of New Jersey powerhouse Don Bosco, DeVito was a four-star prospect and the No. 7 ranked prospect in the state according to 247Sports. DeVito left Bosco and began his college career at Syracuse University. However, even though that was where he started his collegiate career, it was not where he finished it.
He spent five years at and played four seasons for Syracuse from 2017 to 2021. He saw action in 26 total games and threw for 3,866 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions during that time.
Following his fourth and final season with the Orange, DeVito chose to transfer to the University of Illinois for his sixth and final year of collegiate eligibility after redshirting his first year and being granted a medical redshirt in 2020.
In his lone season with the Fighting Illini, DeVito threw 15 touchdown passes and was picked off just four times. He also ended up with two career-high marks during that season, finishing with 2,650 passing yards and a 69.6% completion rate.
DeVito’s Undrafted Route
DeVito was a productive collegiate quarterback who showed he could command an offense, make tough throws from the pocket, and was an athlete willing to use his legs and improvise when the situation called for it.
Despite a strong collegiate career, DeVito did not get drafted by a team in the 2023 NFL Draft and eventually signed as an undrafted free agent with his hometown Giants. DeVito did so after mulling other offers from the Washington Commanders and New England Patriots before deciding home was where his heart was.
His private QB coach, Tony Racioppi, believed that the young QB’s up-and-down college experience and NFL draft results made him even more resilient.
“The way he’s wired, nothing really fazes him,” he told The Post. “That might come from his experiences at Syracuse and Illinois—being a highly touted recruit, playing early, playing well, then not playing well, then getting benched. If you can work yourself through those things, you develop a sense of self-confidence and thick skin, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s college football or the NFL.”
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Ultimately, it does not matter where he started, but where he finished. Even if DeVito’s future does not include being the long-term solution at quarterback for his beloved Giants, he has the opportunity of a lifetime right now, and if he continues to progress through his rookie year, especially on Monday night against the likes of a good Green Bay Packers team, the sky is the limit for the young QB.
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