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Rutgers is Only Chopping Two Things Right Now: Jack and Shit
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Rutgers opened on Thursday night as a -29.5 favorite against the UMass Minutemen, who had four wins and 30 losses over their past three seasons. They hadn’t defeated an FBS school since October of 2023, when they took out Army 21-14 in West Point.
They THROTTLED the Scarlet Knights in Piscataway:
UMass 37, Rutgers 21.
The Knights gave up 397 yards on their home turf, 200 on the ground. Umass ran for 4.9 yards per carry and controlled the clock for 36:21. Rutgers turned the ball over four times and ran for 30 yards on 25 carries while largely playing from behind. They let quarterback William “Pop” Watson complete 19 of his 22 attempts for 197 yards and three scores. It was really bad. He looked like the second coming of Baker Mayfield out there.
This is Greg Schiano’s 7th year of his second Rutgers stint, and he is 33-42 overall with a 15-39 record in Big 10 play. They had a little bit of a thing going in 2023 and 2024 with Kyle Monongai and Athan Kaliakmanis, and had some good out of conference wins against Virginia Tech and Miami, but they’ve been largely uncompetitive against the top half of the Big 10 and haven’t looked like the Rutgers of Schiano’s first stint, which was ~20 years ago now. It’s clear that Raymell Rice and Kenny Britt are not walking through that door with Brian Leonard and Ramel Meekins in tow. They could use those guys.
Unfortunately this is another blow to our dream of having a decent college football program in the Northeastern United States. Rutgers isn’t a Philly school, but there are a decent bit of alumni in this region who also like Philly sports, and when the Knights were good back in the day, they did make some inroads in the New York City media market.
Now? They stink. Schiano probably won’t make it through the year. They have to play at Traitor U next week (Boston College) and then they get Southern Cal at home. Indiana, Penn State, and Michigan are on the schedule. It’s looking like a 2-3 win season for the Knights. There is not a lot of wood being chopped in New Jersey at the current moment. The only thing Rutgers is chopping is jack and shit, and jack left town.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com