Reisterstown Native Leaves UConn to Play Quarterback at Towson

Almost as soon as spring practice began with the University of Connecticut’s new pro-style offense, Leon Kinnard started to think that UConn may not be the best fit for him as a college football player.

Now, less than four months after the Huskies’ spring practice ended in April, Kinnard, who played wide receiver at UConn, has decided to transfer to Towson, where he will play quarterback for the Tigers. He announced the decision last week.

The 5-foot-9-inch, 182-pound Kinnard, a Reisterstown native who spent five years playing for the Reisterstown Mustangs’ youth football team, was a three-year starter at quarterback for Loyola Blakefield High School from 2005 - 2007. He earned second-team All-State and first-team All-Metro accolades as a junior with the Dons and was an honorable mention All-State as both a sophomore and as a senior.

At UConn, however, he redshirted in 2009 and appeared in just five games last season, limited to just one catch for two yards and four carries for 18 yards. He was worried he was in store for an even smaller role this season under first-year offensive coordinator George DeLeone.

At Towson, Kinnard is eager to get back to playing quarterback, the position where he says he feels most comfortable, and expects to be able to compete for a starting job with the Tigers.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Kinnard, who is entering his redshirt sophomore season. “I felt the new offense they were going to be running at Connecticut didn’t really suit me, but I like the offense we’re going to be running at Towson, a multiple offense, [which features] everything from spread to pro-style.”

Before deciding on Towson, Kinnard also considered transferring to Delaware or Villanova, but the Tigers’ offense as well as his relationship with head coach Rob Ambrose lead to his decision to pick Towson. Ambrose, in his third year as the Tigers’ head coach, had previously spent seven years as an assistant coach at UConn, where he played a large role in Kinnard’s recruitment.

He actually recruited Kinnard to play quarterback with the Huskies, although he was switched to wide receiver after Ambrose left for Towson, Ambrose said in a press release last week. Now with the Tigers, Ambrose is looking forward to putting Kinnard back in the center of the game, and expects him to uplift a Towson offense that averaged just 11.8 points per game during the final nine games of last season.

Kinnard missed a large part of his senior season at Loyola with a leg injury, but threw for 1,489 yards and 13 touchdowns as a junior and 1,415 yards and 11 scores as a sophomore. A dual-threat, Kinnard, who has run the 40-yard dash in as fast as 4.43 seconds, also ran for 11 touchdowns his sophomore year.

Because of his versatility, Ambrose may see how Kinnard plays other positions.

“He can help a team in so many ways,” Ambrose said in the press release. “He is the type of player who makes plays. The wider the field, the more effective he is. We are probably going to use him at quarterback first because that will help him learn the offense quicker, but he could do a number of different things for us.”

Towson finished last season just 1-10, but Kinnard hopes to help increase that win total this year.

He says he will spend the next several weeks, leading up to the Tigers’ regular season opener against Morgan State Sept. 3, learning Towson’s playbook, acclimating himself to the Tigers’ offensive system and building a rapport with his teammates.

He will ALSO start preseason practice at the bottom of the depth chart, but is hopeful he can work his way up prior to the game against Morgan State.

“My goal is just to come in here and make us better as a team,” Kinnard said, “and, hopefully, we can get some wins.”