The Scarlet Knights couldn’t quite make it over the hump against a ranked team in the Wolverines in week four, but they’ll be looking to avoid their second-straight loss when they return home to SHI Stadium Saturday. In the second year of head coach Greg Schiano’s second stint with the Scarlet Knights, Rutgers is 3-1, with wins over Temple, Syracuse and Delaware, and a narrow loss to Michigan last week - the team’s best start since 2012. We’ve seen as much in the early weeks of the season. We can expect the result this year to be somewhat narrower.Īs you may have gathered, this is not the Rutgers you used to know: the perennial doormat of the Big Ten the amuse-bouche before the main course of the remainder of conference play.
Ohio State’s largest margin of victory over the Scarlet Knights came in 2016, when the Buckeyes trounced Rutgers 58-0 in Columbus. Heading into Saturday, we’ll see some familiar faces from that matchup on the Rutgers side of the ball, including starting quarterback Noah Verdrel and running back Isaih Pacheco. In that matchup, quarterback Justin Fields was nearly perfect, throwing for 314 yards and five touchdowns. Most recently, the Buckeyes defeated the Scarlet Knights 49-27 in 2020 in the first faceoff between Ryan Day and Greg Schiano. Surprisingly, the pair first faced off in 2014 when the Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten, never having encountered one another previously. The Buckeyes are 7-0 versus Rutgers all-time. But alas, that ship has sailed and, if nothing else, the Buckeyes got a much-needed tune up ahead of conference play against Rutgers. Perhaps, from a scheduling perspective, Ohio State would have preferred to start the season with the Zips and work the kinks out before a high-stakes conference game and a not-quite-as-high-stakes out-of-conference matchup against a tough Oregon squad. While all this is good news, we must temper our excitement and recognize that, yes, the Buckeyes played against a lower level of competition last week. Stroud, and get playing time for younger players who will certainly play larger roles later this season and in future years. Ohio State also benefited from being able to rest starters who’d been banged up, like redshirt freshman quarterback C.J. Six rushers ran for a total of 237 yards on the ground, led, as has become the norm this season, by true freshman TreVeyon Henderson. The offense, meanwhile, which had been running in fits and starts, ran smoothly with two different quarterbacks and a host of running backs. That shift certainly seems to have worked in Ohio State’s favor, with the Buckeyes holding Akron to 229 total yards on offense and recording two picks. Ryan Day adjusted play calling duties dating back to Ohio State’s matchup against Tulsa, favoring secondary coach Matt Barnes over Kerry Coombs.
The Ohio State defense has had its share of well-documented struggles this season (and dating back to last season). For the first time this season, the result of the game was not in doubt heading into the half, with the Buckeyes fixing many of the issues that had ailed them through the first three weeks of play. Well, I’m glad the Buckeyes are putting the puzzle pieces togetherĪren’t we all. The Buckeyes’ final non-conference game of the regular season was a perfect opportunity to get on track before entering the remaining eight-game stretch of conference play starting this week - which kicks off with a much more talented, disciplined and motivated Rutgers Scarlet Knights team than the Buckeyes have ever seen. 11 Ohio State Buckeyes finally seemed to get the wheels turning against the Akron Zips last week, securing a 59-7 victory that more than covered an already sizable spread.īut Akron is, of course, in the MAC. Because things only get more challenging from here on out.Īfter a slow start to the season with questions on both sides of the ball, the No.
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