Asad Abdul-Khaliq

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Asad Tajmmal Abdul-Khaliq (born August 4, 1980 in Elizabeth, New Jersey) is an American arena football quarterback, currently playing for the Fort Wayne Fusion of the af2. He was the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team from 2000 to 2003. The Gophers went 10-3 during his senior year in 2003 with Abdul-Khaliq under center - the first time they won that many games in a season. He also briefly played for the Chicago Rush and the New York Dragons of the AFL.

Gophers

Abdul-Khaliq was a four-year letter winner with Minnesota and was a two-year captain.^[1] He started as a freshman in 2000, although he eventually split quarterback duties during his freshman and sophomore years with junior-college transfer Travis Cole, with Cole seeing the majority of playing time. In 2002, after Cole graduated, Abdul-Khaliq became the full-time starter as a junior in 2002 and helped lead the Gophers to an 8-5 record, topped off by a win over Arkansas in the Music City Bowl.

During his senior season, the Gophers got off to a 6-0 start and were nationally ranked before suffering a devastating comeback defeat at the hands of the Michigan Wolverines in a nationally televised game at the Metrodome. The Gophers finished off the year 10-3, including a 31-30 victory over Oregon in the Sun Bowl. For the season Abdul-Khaliq passed for 2,401 yards, throwing for 17 touchdowns and scoring four more on the ground.^[2] Over his entire Gophers career, Abdul-Khaliq completed 481-of-847 career passes for 6,660 yards and 55 touchdowns in 46 games. He added 1,158 yards and 16 touchdowns rushing.

Asad set Golden Gopher career records for touchdown passes (55), passing yards (6,600), total offense (7,818 yards), completions (481) and career touchdown-to-interception ratio (2.1-1).^[3] As of 2008, he currently holds all those records except for passing yards and completions which were broken by his successor Bryan Cupito, who also tied Abdul-Khaliq’s touchdown mark of 55. His 19 touchdown passes in 2002 were one shy of Mike Hohensee’s school record for touchdown passes in a season, and he tied Hohensee’s record of 10 straight games with at least one touchdown pass. He is the only quarterback in Gopher history to pass for at least 12 touchdowns in three seasons.^[4]

Arena Football League

After leaving the University of Minnesota, Abdul-Khaliq signed a three-year contract with the Chicago Rush of the Arena Football League on November 1, 2004. He was Chicago’s third-string quarterback during his rookie year in 2005 but did not see any playing time. After playing in only two games for the Rush in 2006, Asad was traded to the New York Dragons. He didn’t start any games for New York in 2007, however he did play a little at defensive back, as the team finished the season 5-11 and failing to make the playoffs.

His cousin Todd Bowles is the defensive backs coach for the Dallas Cowboys.

References