PISCATAWAY -- Kyle Bolin is the Rutgers starting quarterback for the season opener and beyond this fall. Scarlet Knights coach Chris Ash made that clear when he tapped Bolin as his starter before the final week of training camp and reemphasized that Sunday when he expressed confidence in the Louisville grad transfer's ability to execute the offense.

"Kyle has been very impressive in his short time here,'' Ash said Sunday during a press conference to preview the season-opening game against Washington, which kicks off Friday, 8 p.m., at High Point Solutions Stadium.

"We're excited to watch him go play and I'm really glad he's here. He's created a great competition at the quarterback position. I think he's elevated the play of others around him and just the leadership and the ethic the kid has demonstrated and brought to our offense has been outstanding so far.''

Still, that doesn't mean Bolin is guaranteed to play the entire game against Washington. While Rutgers offensive coordinator Jerry Kill stressed that he's not about to begin rotating his quarterbacks from series-to-series, Ash said there could be a role for both fourth-year junior Gio Rescigno and freshman Johnathan Lewis in the offensive game-plan.

"(I) anticipate that there's an opportunity for Johnathan and Gio both to play in a game,'' Ash said, "based on the situation.''

While Ash would rather bite the head off a poisonous snake than give away game-plan specifics, the Rutgers second-year coach volunteered that statement when asked whether he's decided who will back up Bolin against Washington.

"(The backup QB competition) is still ongoing and probably will be for the majority of, at least, the start of the season,'' Ash said. "It is a nice luxury to have a backup quarterback that started so many games like Gio has and been in games and done well. So that's a comfort.

"But we do want to get Johnathan Lewis into games. How much the first game will have to be determined. It won't be a surprise if at some point all three of those guys, not necessarily in one game, but could play throughout the first half of the season, until we really get comfortable with what we're doing.''

Consider that the boldest statement yet that Lewis, the ballyhooed dual-threat quarterback out of St. Peter's Prep, won't redshirt this fall.

"The kid is a talented kid,'' Ash said, when pressed on why he wants to utilize Lewis' skill-set. "If you're going to play another quarterback, there's got to be a reason. He's a different skill-set than the other two quarterbacks. We do think he's going to have a chance to be a quarterback for us and we think his skill-set brings a different element to our offense, and if we can take advantage of that and use that, we'll do that. If we don't think it's the right time, we don't.''

Although Lewis' skills are raw, the 6-3, 240-pounder from East Orange brings a different dimension to Rutgers' offense, evidenced by the 1,557 passing yards, 992 rushing yards and 31 touchdowns he accounted for last fall at St. Peter's Prep.

"We're not going to force it just to say we're going to but there are opportunities and situations where Johnathan Lewis could help our football team,'' Ash said. "It might be the first (game), might be third or fourth, depending on how the quarterbacks handle game week. We don't know that about Johnathan Lewis yet and we have to go through the week and see how he's doing, before we say, he's going to go in this game or that game.''

For his part, Kill said Lewis "is still learning.'' But, he added in the same breath, "he's going to be a guy that's going to be unbelievable here.''

How unbelievable that is this fall is still to be determined, the Scarlet Knights' offensive play-caller .

"I don't know what I'll do,'' Kill said on potentially playing multiple quarterbacks in a game. "I'm not going to flip quarterbacks every series.''

But Kill pointed to how he played two quarterbacks during his final season at Northern Illinois in 2010, when true freshman Jordan Lynch -- a gun-run QB with a similar skill-set to Lewis -- saw action in nine games (rushing for 362 yards and 3 TDs) while starter Chandler Harnish threw for 2,530 yards and 21 TDs in 13 starts.

"In certain situations you may want to do some things (with Lewis),'' Kill said. "We gotta bring Johnathan along. We're still doing that. And we just have to see.''

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.