The Rutgers Football program ran into arguably the top offense in the entire nation this week as they took on the No. 3 ranked Ohio State football team. The Buckeyes cruised to a 49-27 victory over the Scarlet Knights and were led by Heisman candidate quarterback Justin Fields, who went on to throw for 315 yards, five passing touchdowns and rushed for another score too.
The Scarlet Knights head coach Greg Schiano addressed the media after the team’s tough loss to his former team.
“We played the measuring stick in our league, in the Big Ten Conference and we didn't quite measure up,” Schiano told the media in his postgame presser,” But unfortunately in the first half we made some mistakes that are hard to overcome against a team like that. However I thought our kids continue to chop the whole game, thought our coaches didn’t perform or coach very well and the first half, but in the second half they continued to chop, didn’t get discourage and kept playing We know we got a lot of work to do, but they fought and they continue to chop through it and that’s a good place to be building from.”
SIGN UP FOR PREMIUM NOW AND GET 30 DAYS FREE — CLICK HERE FOR MORE!!
Although the Buckeyes offense was kicking on all cylinders, the Scarlet Knights offense struggled mightily and couldn’t manage to get much of anything going. Starting quarterback Noah Vedral had his struggles today only throwing for 168 yards on 23-of-33 passing, along with seven rushes for 15 yards.
Coach Schiano admits that they have to do something different in order to get the offense going to try to win the game and that something different was bringing out the trick plays.
"I mean that's what they pay us for right,” Schiano said in regards to using too many trick plays too early in the season,” I mean we will dream something up because I really believe that every week is a one game season. As I told you guys last week, you literally wear it when you lose. I know made many people didn't expect us to win, but we did, we expected to win. We didn’t win, we are more than this right now and it's hard, but you got to learn from it. You got to get on the tape right away, learn from it with the players. It starts with me, it goes through the staff and then we have to be the teachers and convey it to our players. That is the essence of coaching and we have to do a better job all of us, starting with me."
Out of all the trick plays the Scarlet Knights ran today, the one that stood out the most was the passing touchdown to left tackle Raiqwon O'Neal, who scored his first ever receiving touchdown.
“It was a really good play call,” said Schiano. “If you remember we threw that to Jeremy Zuttah and then we threw that to Anthony Davis in one of our bowl games. It's a good play and you know, you get to use it once in a while and people will be on to it now, so I forget one of you guys, I think it was Steve who asked about the on-sides recently and I think you’re right we just just have to come up with some new stuff.”
There is still seven days left until the Rutgers Football gets back on the gridiron as they will welcome the 0-3 Illinois Fighting Illini to town, but coach Schiano has already started to shift focus towards his next opponent.
"We were able to do better in the second half and we have to build on that," Schiano stated. "It is whatever time it is now around 11:30pm and we won't get back home until the early morning. We have a tough game at noon next week and that's where our focus shifts immediately, we have to get ready for Illinois and it's going to be a battle. So, if we can build on this then it's all good and if we don't, we aren’t even going to talk about if we don't because we have too."
--------------------------------------------------------------
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
