Rutgers Football will look to become bowl eligible this Saturday when it hits the road to face Penn State at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pa.
The Scarlet Knights are 5-5 (2-5 Big Ten) on the season and are coming off of victory at Indiana while the 6-4 (3-4) Nittany Lions just lost to Michigan at home.
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Rutgers has two more games to achieve one more win to reach the magical six-win mark for the first time since 2014 when it made the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit.
But it will have its hands full with a team that had a stout defense. Penn State is allowing just 17.1 points per game.
"Well, they're really good," Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said on Monday during his weekly press conference about Penn State's No. 9-ranked scoring defense. "I mean, they're a top 10 scoring defense in the country. So that means no one has scored on them. They're really athletic, they run very well. Secondary is outstanding. They have very athletic linebackers, and even though they've lost some guys to season ending injuries on the defensive front, they're still very good. There's a reason that they are a top 10 scoring defense."
In order for Rutgers to beat Penn State for the time since it joined the Big Ten and since 1988, it must take care of the ball itself and take away the ball as well.
The ball is the program, after all. The Scarlet Knights benefited from six Indiana turnovers this past weekend.
Penn State is scoring 24.7 points per game, and quarterback Sean Clifford is also third in the league with 2,576 passing yards and fourth with 17 touchdowns. He also has just six interceptions in 354 attempts, second most in the conference.
"Well, I can tell you this, whether it's this game or any game, you got to take care of the football first," Schiano said. "When we don't turn the ball over win at least in 2021 That would be the first thing and then the next thing would be if we can take it away from them, it gives us a real good chance. So that's where it starts. But there's a lot of things that make that happen. Some of it is schematics, some of it is techniques. All those things have to come into play. But more than anything, you got to play really, really hard over an extended period of time. That takes a great deal of focus."
While Rutgers hasn't played its best football at SHI Stadium, it has played much better -- and won games -- on the road. The Scarlet Knights won all three of its games in 2020 on the road and among its five wins this season, three were away also.
"We've shown I think that the row doesn't really affect us one way or the other," Schiano said. "We're gonna go out and do the best we can. We played at Michigan and I thought, even though we didn't win the game, we played well. That's a big crowd (Penn State). I like it personally. I love when you take your team on the road, it's just your 74 guys in your staff and away you go. There is a little bit of us against the world so that's fun. This will be a great opportunity. They're a real good team though. Playing them on the road or playing at home it wouldn't matter, they're very good."
Schiano has mentioned on a couple of occasions about how Rutgers does not have a true rival like say Michigan-Ohio State or many of the other Big Ten programs. He believes it cannot be forced, and that it has to just happen over time.
If Rutgers wants to ever be considered a rival with Penn Sate, it'll need to win. Right now, Rutgers is more of a rival with Maryland among the Big Ten teams more than anyone given the proximity to each other and the fact that the games have gone back and forth over the years.
"Do you have to have (a rivalry)? No. Is it good for college football? Yes. Is it good for a program I think 100% If you've ever been a part of them, it's a lot of fun," Schiano said. "College football's fun, and that makes it even more fun. I've been part of some of the biggest. I mean, probably the biggest. We used to talk about first it was Pitt-Penn State, and then it was Miami-Florida State, and then Ohio State Michigan. Those are like really big, big rivalries.
"I long for us to have a rival like that. The thing that I've said to you guys before is you can't decide who it is. You need to play your way into it, and when we do then we'll have a rival. We haven't done that yet."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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