Rutgers Football held its first intersquad scrimmage of the spring on Saturday inside SHI Stadium in Piscataway.
This gave head coach Greg Schiano as good of a look at his team thus far in 2022. He talked about how the day went after it was completed. And from the sound of it, there’s work to do.
“Good effort, but not great execution,” Schiano said. “This will be a tape for the coaches and players to watch. We essentially have a new defensive staff, so I was anxious to see how they’d react in a game-like situation.”
The starting quarterback job is between the three of Noah Vedral, who has started the last two seasons for the Scarlet Knights, redshirt freshman Gavin Wimsatt, and sophomore Evan Simon. Right now, it is too early to make a call.
“The quarterback play today was inconsistent, and you could probably say that for the entire spring so far,” Schiano said. “ There’s been some sloppy things whether it’s thinking too much or not understanding it totally, we’ve done things nonchalantly at times. You’ve got to treat every down like gold.”
Fixing the offensive line was a major focus in the offseason. Rutgers brought in four transfers along the line and signed seven freshmen, three of whom are on campus for spring ball. Augie Hoffmann was also switched to coaching the offensive line from running backs. Cedrice Paillant transferred out a couple of days ago.
Schiano is hoping some combination can gel and stick. If Rutgers wants to improve on offense, it’ll come down to play in the trenches.
“We were not very good,” Schiano said. “We were the 120th ranked offensive line, as I said at the beginning of the year, we’re not gonna go any further than that line takes us. We’re looking for key pieces. Today, there was some good things but not enough. We’re going to have to continue to work and build on that. We brought in seven freshmen -- three are here now. We just have to keep building in. It's a work in progress. The arrow is up. After Reggie got hurt last year, the arrow went down.”
One position group that hasn’t been talked about yet during the spring has been the running backs. Aaron Young is still on the mend after being injured in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl last December. He should be back for training camp. For now, Kyle Monangai and Jamier Wright-Collins have taken the bulk of the reps.
Schiano noted what he’d like to see from the running backs going forward.
“Without Aaron, it changes the look of that room. I thought Kyle did some good things today and ‘Ja’,” Schiano said. “We have to run more physically. Threes turn into 30s when you just keep taking the threes. They just pop out eventually. When you try and get the 30s, they are twos and ones. I think we need to run more down hill.”
As for the defense, Avery Young and Christian Izien are penciled in as the starters at the two safety spots, but neither participated in the scrimmage. In turn, that gave the depth behind more looks such as Desmond Igbinosun, Elijuwan Mack, and Joe Lusardi.
“Christian and Avery didn’t scrimmage, so it’s a young group out there. But they need the reps, and I thought they did OK.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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