For Maryland’s upcoming game against Rutgers, we wanted to get the lowdown on everything you need to know about the Scarlet Knights. So we found an expert: Brian Fonseca of the Daily Targum, the Rutgers school newspaper.
What needs to happen for Rutgers to return to a reasonably successful program like it was under Greg Schiano?
Keeping in-state recruits at home.
It’s a cliche, but college football is all about recruiting the right talent, and New Jersey is a hotbed of high school football. Schiano built his program on a lot of Florida talent, but many of his best players like Mike Teel and Ray Rice came from the New York/New Jersey area. Top-5 recruits from Jersey like Rashan Gary, Kareem Walker and Jabrill Peppers are going to Ann Arbor, in addition to other solid players like Mike Gesicki, Corey Clement, Shilique Calhoun and so many others are leaving the Garden State to play for other, more established Big Ten programs like Penn State, Wisconsin and Michigan State.
If head coach Chris Ash wants to reach the heights of the man who filled in the hole he left in Columbus, he’ll have to keep top talent at home.
Were people expecting head coach Chris Ash’s first season at Rutgers to be this rough?
Short answer? Kind of.
Long answer? Yes, but maybe not to this extent.
His predecessor Kyle Flood had a disastrous 4-year stint, essentially ruining all the progress Schiano made in his time in Piscataway. Yes, Flood won a share of the Big East title and took Rutgers to an 8-5 record in its first year in the Big Ten, but that was off the work of the remains of the top-25 recruiting class in 2012 that committed to play for Schiano but stuck around for Flood. Flood had a pair of very mediocre recruiting classes in his final two years and left the cupboard essentially bare for Ash and his staff.
The Knights have little talent at quarterback, are paper-thin at linebacker and are losing a large chunk of their starters on both sides of the line of scrimmage to graduation. People were expecting a rebuild, but it’s slowly looking steeper with each week.
Is there any one area of the team that seems especially responsible for Rutgers’ 2-9 record this year?
Each area of the team has seemingly been the culprit in a loss at least once this season.
The biggest area of concern is Rutgers’ rush defense, which ranks bottom of the Big Ten. As I mentioned before, the linebacker room is paper-thin, with true freshman Tyreek Maddox-Williams, a late commit whose only other offer aside from the Knights being Buffalo, starting their last six games at strong-side linebacker. Rutgers looked decent in pass defense early in the Big Ten but it was torn to shreds by Indiana and Michigan State.
On the offensive side of the ball, Rutgers has struggled to get anything going as of late, with every area struggling really badly. The offensive line has been porous. The quarterback room has been a turnstile, with 4 different quarterbacks taking snaps this season and none of them seeming to excel in the power-spread offense Ash and his offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer have tried implementing with a roster full of kids recruited to play in Schiano/Flood’s pro-style offense. The running back rotation has been questioned as of late.
What is something you’ve seen from the team that leaves you feeling optimistic for next season?
Ash, a defensive minded coach, has been openly excited about the youth of the defensive unit. Rutgers has nine of the current starters returning next season, including both cornerbacks and a young linebacker corps.
That’s really pulling at straws. The most comforting thing for Rutgers fans, honestly, is it will be difficult to get much worse than this season going forward.
Maryland’s three game gauntlet of Michigan, Ohio State and Nebraska has left them unable to run the ball. Will that still be a problem against Rutgers?
As I mentioned above, Rutgers has had a lot of problems stopping the run on defense throughout the season, but especially during Big Ten play. Barring a miracle in which all of their injuries are cured and the starters from the season-opener are all healthy, I believe Maryland will have a solid day running the ball Saturday.
Fill in the blank: Rutgers beats Maryland if ______
The Knights pull together their best performance of the season to remove the bad taste of a 39-0 loss to Penn State in their seniors’ final home game.
Rutgers needs a monster effort from starting quarterback Giovanni Rescigno — who hasn’t looked the same since hurting his hamstring in the first quarter of his first career start against Minnesota earlier in the year — as well as junior running back Robert Martin and their offensive line on the offensive side of the ball. On defense, Rutgers needs to make stops early in drives and hold the run well enough to force Maryland to throw the ball. Considering the Knights haven’t scored in two weeks, it is a pretty big ask.
I don’t see the Knights pulling off the win, but weirder things have happened in this series. If the game is anywhere near as sloppy and back and forth as the last two meetings between these teams have been, Rutgers may spoil the Terps’ bowl chances like they did for the Knights a year ago.
