Heading into his third season with the Scarlet Knights, placekicker Jai Patel discussed how training camp has gone so far and how the team has developed.
"It's been amazing, it's been definitely great," Patel said. "Growing closer as a team, that's one of our main goals of the camp, not only getting better but growing closer and wanting to play for each other, building that family bond that we talked about so much."
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Patel is coming off a historic season where he went 15-for-18 (83.3 percent) on field goals, setting a school record for field goal accuracy (minimum 15 attempts). He was also voted Third Team All-Big Ten by the media, an honorable mention by the coaches, and Fourth Team All-Big Ten by Phil Steele.
"That game experience can't be traded for anything no matter how hard you make a practice or scrimmage," he said. "Playing in those rowdy environments across the Big Ten like Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and so on, those are untradeable. I definitely use that experience to help me out, but I don't take anything for granted, I just try to approach each moment as if it's a new one."
Patel was named Rutgers Athletics Sophomore of the Year in 2023 along with Academic All-Big Ten and Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week on Sept. 11. He was also named preseason All-Big Ten by Athlon Sports (third team).
Patel connected on 33-of-34 extra points and led the team with 78 points. So, despite all of his success, he described some of the tweaks he made to his game entering the season.
"My technique's been staying the same, I'm just working on mental," he continued. "Just being able to become a better kicker is becoming mentally and physically stronger. I feel like I just need to continue to work on that technique and become more consistent with that game."
While Rutgers has a lot of returnees from 2023, its special teams unit has undergone several changes, including the addition of Australian punter Jakob Anderson.
"Our operation has definitely changed, we got a new snapper and holder coming into this year, and a new punter with that," Patel said. "Austin Riggs is doing an amazing job from BYU, Mike O'Connor from last year's amazing, and so is Sammy [El Hadidi], our other snapper. Jakob came here and he's adapting amazingly punting and also holding."
Patel also discussed the relationship he has formed with Riggs.
"Riggs is an amazing guy, he comes with a lot of experience from the Big 12 and being in an independent conference, so he brings that experience from BYU and we definitely use that to our advantage, but he's still adapting here to our way here at Rutgers," he said. "He's been fun to talk to at lunch and dinner and we chit-chat all the time, but it's always cool to have new guys come in and share their stories. We've had guys from Australia, Ireland, and now we've had a guy from BYU and done all these things, so it always adds a little flavor to the room."
Similar to head coach Greg Schiano's first tenure with the team, Rutgers is returning to the top of several special teams statistics, including leading the NCAA with eight blocked punts the last two seasons. It also led the nation with an average of 33 yards per kickoff return in 2023.
"We take pride in that tremendously," Patel said. "We consider the punt to be the most important play in football, so we're going to take advantage and spend a lot of time on that period alone. We do it every day because we understand how important that is for the way we play complementary football, so we spend so much time on punting, but it's also the other five phases."
Patel described what it is like as a kicker playing for a program that puts so much emphasis on the third phase of football.
"You definitely feel a lot of pride about it because it's one thing to have the coaches make it important, but once you see the other guys on the field making it just as important and buying into it as well it feels so amazing," he added. "A specialist is usually a guy that's on their own working on their craft, but when you have 10 other guys on the field working with you and bringing you up anytime you're down, that's the best."
Rutgers showed the importance of special teams the last time it took the field when it blocked a punt in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl that was recovered in the end zone and gave it a 21-17 lead in the third quarter. From there, the Scarlet Knights swung momentum and never trailed again.
"Blocking punts is just as important for us and blocking kicks and field goals has been big at Rutgers here too," Patel said. "And then every time I'm sent out there our expectation is to get points, so we've spent so much time on special teams and we're going to continue to focus on that. It's always been a big emphasis from coaches."
As a Monmouth Junction native, Patel looks forward to playing amongst his New Jersey brethren and is appreciative of the guys who stuck around to play for their home-state school.
"Coach looks for guys that want to be here and the way I am, being a Jersey guy, I want to play with guys that want to be here as well," he said. "We've had a group of guys the last year or two that really want to be here and win in New Jersey at the highest level in the Big Ten. I love that we've been really working hard this summer and leading up to the season."
The Scarlet Knights will go against some fresh faces this season, including Big Ten newcomers Washington, UCLA, and USC. However, Patel explained that not much will change in terms of preparing for their opponents.
"We're going to continue to game plan and scout our opponents the same way we usually do and focus a lot on ourselves," he said. "Just focus on ourselves and how we're going to do that to the best of our ability."
He also discussed the time he has been spending with strength and conditioning coach Jay Butler and how he is looking to extend his length of kicks.
"It's getting better every day," Patel said. "I've put in a lot of work with Coach [Jay] Butler this off-season and just been getting stronger and doing all the technique stuff."
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