Patriots Sign Yet Another Rutgers Player, Add Former Notre Dame Kicker to Compete With Stephen Gostkowski

by abournenesn

May 20, 2013

The Patriots are already one day into organized team activities, but they are still adding players to an almost full roster.

The Patriots signed wide receiver Mark Harrison, who — Gasp! — is a Rutgers graduate, and kicker David Ruffer from Notre Dame to fill out their 90-man roster.

Harrison, 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, is another terrific athlete with great measurables, including a 4.46 40-yard-dash time, 38.5-inch vertical and 129-inch broad jump at the NFL combine. He was inconsistent during his four years at Rutgers, but he did produce at a pretty good level his senior season with 44 catches for 583 yards and six touchdowns. He makes the fifth Rutgers rookie on the Patriots, joining teammates Logan Ryan, Duron Harmon, Steve Beauharnais and fellow undrafted rookie Brandon Jones.

Ruffer went undrafted from Notre Dame last season but didn’t link on with an NFL team. He won the Lou Groza Award, given to the nation’s best place kicker, as a junior in 2010 after hitting 18 of 19 field goals, but his senior season was a disappointment as he missed six of 16 kicks. For his career, Ruffer hit 83 percent of his field goal attempts. He is likely in camp to push incumbent kicker Stephen Gostkowski, who struggled at times in 2012.

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