Richter ready to seize opportunity as Toledo’s QB1
If John Alan Richter feels like he has been in this boat before, it’s because he indeed has.
Entering the 2026 season at Toledo, the former Jones County standout is entrenched as the starter after spending his time with the Rockets playing behind others, waiting for his opportunity.
That’s exactly where he found himself in the summer of 2020, just before taking the helm as starting quarterback for the Greyhounds. Richter took hold of that opportunity in a robust way, throwing for more than a combined 5,000 yards in two seasons, leading Jones County to one semifinal appearance and a quarterfinal berth the year after.
That helped attract the eye of then-Rockets head coach Jason Candle, whose staff offered Richter late in the 2021 season.
Now, after a career in which he has been mostly a backup for Toledo, Richter is QB1 for the Rockets.
“It’s crazy how the Lord has worked in so many ways to prepare me for this moment. There are a lot of things that are similar,” Richter said. “Coach (Mike) Chastain came in here, and then I started the next year. It’s helped me a lot, knowing what it takes to work hard, make sure you do your job, and get better every day.”
Gradually, Richter’s career has built up to this fall. In 2024, he got his first career start in a 13-6 win against Northern Illinois, throwing for 152 yards. He also saw time in three games last year, passing for a combined 152 yards, a step forward that would be halted by an injury in a late-September game against Akron.
That injury, however, has not impacted
how Richter approaches his football craft of seeking to extend plays outside the pocket.
“It was just football, it’s a tough sport. Things happen. You hate to play fearless and put those things behind you, and attack plays as much as you can,” Richter said. “Obviously as a quarterback, you want to protect yourself as much as you can, but I want to try and play fearless as much as I can, too.”
Being a Rocket was not a sure thing at the end of last season, however, when Candle left the Rockets for the same job at Connecticut. In the current college football landscape, speculation can quickly run rampant amid coaching changes that some players may go elsewhere.
Enter a middle Georgia tie-in. The Rockets hired Mike Jacobs to replace Candle, and Jacobs came from somewhere that Richter knows very well from back home in Gray - Mercer University.
“When the whole coaching change happened, he started talking to me immediately and wanted me to stay and explained the plan for me,” Richter said. “We had kind of talked about how he thought this team would look like, and that was really attractive, and that’s the reason why I stayed. It’s just been awesome to watch him lead our team with Coach Jacobs and how he does things.”
For a new offensive staff headed by offensive coordinator Cris Reisert, having a signal-caller with veteran experience and proven ability was key.
'Obviously the tape speaks for itself, but as a leader, as a human, somebody that loves football and will do the extra work to be an elite player, we've got that with him,” Reisert told UTRockets.com “It was really important for us to recruit him to stay and for him to put his faith in Coach Jacobs and myself.'
For Richter it’s full-speed ahead going into the season.
“It’s been awesome, I’ve just been working for a long time to get this opportunity, it means a lot to be the starting quarterback at the University of Toledo, it means a lot to me,” Richter said. “I’m just excited. It’s hard to put into words. I’m confident going into the season and ready to attack.”
As that upcoming season is on its precipice, Richter also looks back to some of those moments from back home in Jones County that helped him become the player he is today. One such instance was in 2020.
That’s when Richter entered the season having won the starting quarterback job for the Greyhounds, who started the season 0-3 with losses to Grayson, North Gwinnett, and Veterans. The next game against Union Grove saw things turn around in a 62-22 win, the first of ten straight wins on the way to a return to the state semifinals.
“My junior year, we started 0-3, and Coach was like, ‘if we lose again, I might end up having to make a change. We ended up beating Union Grove. We smoked them, and I played really well,” Richter said. “It was a moment where I was like, ‘am I even cut out for this?’ I prayed hard, kept working hard, and eventually, I played well, and the rest is history. Moments like that help you build yourself up, knowing that you can do hard things and that if you put your faith in the Lord, good things will happen.”
Toledo rolls into the season having gone 8-5 the past two years but 11-3 the year prior, one in which it was undefeated in the regular season against teams from the Mid-American Conference, better known as the MAC.
But the other prong of the Rockets’ season lies in their out-of-conference matchups. Since Richter has been with the Rockets, they’ve hung close with Power Four conference teams such as Kentucky, Washington State, and Illinois as well as two years ago when the Rockets won at Mississippi State.
The Rockets open the season Sept. 4 at the Big Ten’s Michigan State.
“Toledo has always played Power Four teams really tough, it’s a big goal of ours to go up to Michigan State and knock them in the mouth in the first game of the season,” Richter said. “When I was a sophomore, we went undefeated in the MAC, so that’s definitely a goal, winning a MAC championship.”
