New Trier senior Jackie Ryder is the late bloomer among the cast of characters that makes up Chicagoland’s greatest class of quarterback recruits.
Ryder didn’t play tackle football until eighth grade, and he started on the sophomore team for most of his sophomore season. Then he kept growing, and everything started to click.
Watching Ryder’s highlights, one can see hints that he’s still getting comfortable with his 6-foot-5 frame. But he can throw the ball from Northfield to Winnetka and will surprise opponents with his legs. His development will be interesting to watch, this season and beyond.
“The biggest transition was really from the end of his junior year until the spring,” New Trier coach Brian Doll said. “I would say he gained 20, 25 pounds. His body filled out in a really nice way. His arm strength, you could really hear the ball hum when it would come off his hand.”
Purdue watched the entire transition, and Ryder committed to the Big Ten program in April. His path has similarities to another late-blooming quarterback from the northern suburbs, Stevenson’s Aidan O’Connell.
In O’Connell’s case, he didn’t start until his senior year of high school, worked his way up from preferred walk-on at Purdue and is playing in the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Ryder first visited West Lafayette to watch a spring practice after his sophomore year, met quarterback coach Darin Hinshaw and was asked to come back in the summer for the Boilermakers’ camp.
“Had a pretty decent camp, I’d say,” Ryder said. “Didn’t blow him away initially. But they kept an eye on me this last season, saw how I got better, and they wanted to make me their guy for this class.
“It’s just a huge honor, with how I went from the spring practice to committing a year later, almost on the same date.”
More Top Picks Shades Sail
Ryder essentially used Hersey’s Tom Nelson as his quarterback coach, playing for the TNT 7-on-7 program alongside Kentucky commit Jake Nawrot. In a sign of the times, Ryder meets weekly with a quarterback coach, Rich Scangarello, supplied by his agency, Lift Sports Management.
Ryder may have been late to football, but he also was destined to play the sport. His father, Brian, who grew up in Huntington Beach, California, played tight end at Arizona State. So Ryder’s younger days featured several trips to Tempe for game days or alumni functions.
Brian Ryder wasn’t a huge star, but he did score a couple of touchdowns for the Sun Devils.
“His games, you can’t really find them on YouTube,” Jackie Ryder said. “He scored a touchdown at Nebraska (in 1992), and some Nebraska fan made a VHS tape of that game. For Father’s Day, my mom actually got a DVD made from that tape, so it was pretty cool. We got to watch that on Father’s Day and see him play.”
Ryder and New Trier are off to a fast start this season. In convincing wins over Naperville North and Waubonsie Valley, he accumulated impressive stats. He has a 71% completion percentage and is averaging 11.7 yards per attempt.
That’s also at a high volume. Ryder has completed 32 of 45 passes for 526 yards and four touchdowns. The top receiver is senior John Baxter, who has 117 yards and two scores.
Eventually, Ryder can make his mark by ending the Trevians’ trend toward a postseason one-and-done. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2016.
“I think this is probably the most talented group of guys at New Trier in a while, on both sides of the ball,” Ryder said. “So this year I feel we’re going to make a deep run and turn a lot of heads with how we do on the field.”
Considering how quickly Ryder’s career has progressed, there’s probably a decent chance he will be a better quarterback by November.