Rutgers Football Maryland week practice notebook
The Rutgers football team is gearing up for a winner-take-all game against Maryland on Saturday at noon at SHI Stadium Piscataway.
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TKR was out at practice checking out the Scarlet Knights' preparation for the Terrapins and got a chance to chat with a few of them.
Check out some notes below.
Ray Guy Award finalist Adam Korsak is returning in 2022
Rutgers punter Adam Korsak was named a Ray Guy Award finalist on Tuesday morning. Korsak is on pace to set the school record with an average punt of 46.0 yards. Ryan Anderson is the current holder with a 44.4 average in 2017. Korsak, a two-time team captain has booted 18 punts of at least 50 yards this season, with 11 traveling 55 or more yards and three over 60. That included a 74-yarder, fifth-longest in school history, to the 7-yard line at Penn State and a 69-yarder to the 1-yard line at Syracuse.
Korsak has been a Ray Guy Punter of Week three times and Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week twice. In Rutgers' win at Illinois, Korsak downed punts at the 20-yard line, 15, 4, and 1. His first punt of the year vagainst Temple went 56 yards, stopped at the 1-yard line and led to a safety.
Rutgers leads the nation in net punting with a mark of 45.33 yards. The number is currently ahead of the NCAA record of 45.04 set by BYU in 1983. Net punting calculates the exchange in yardage, factoring in returns against and touchbacks.
Korsak has not bounced an attempt into the end zone for a touchback in 118 consecutive chances dating back to the finale of 2019 (20 games), the longest active streak nationally. This season, he has punted 66 times with 35 downed inside the 20-yard line, 15 at the 10-yard line or closer, eight at the 5-yard line or closer and four times nestling a kick at the 1-yard line. Opponents have been held to a return of less than four yards 63-of-66 attempts, including 59 times recording a zero or negative return. The average starting field position following a Korsak punt for the opposition is their own 22-yard line.
In 44 games since taking over the role for the Scarlet Knights, Korsak has been on the Ray Guy Award watch list all four seasons and earned All-Big Ten recognition the three previous years. He has downed 110 inside the 20-yard line with only five career touchbacks on 268 punts. The Melbourne, Australia ntive holds the school record with 11,757 career yards, forcing 101 fair catches and never allowing a touchdown or block against. His longest attempt went 79 yards versus Northwestern in 2018, a school record.
The last Scarlet Knight to become a finalist for a national on-field award was running back Ray Rice for the 2007 Doak Walker Award. The winner will be announced during the Home Depot College Football Awards Show on Dec. 9 on ESPN.
Korsak said on Tuesday that his waiver was approved and he will be back "On the Banks" next fall as well and he is excited to do so, saying he loves his teammates, the coaches, and the university.
Rutgers hasn't won a Big Ten home since 2017 when it defeated Maryland 31-24. It is trying to break that streak as well as the streak of not making a bowl game since 2014 against the Terrapins.
"We do whatever we can to prepare," senior offensive lineman Nick Krimin said. "Maryland's a great team, we give hem all the credit. We're taking it day by day, whether it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever we can do to get better each and every day in order to be ready on Saturday."
The Scarlet Knights edged Maryland last year on the road in overtime.
"A lot of similar stuff from last year," Krimin said regarding the Terrapins defense. "A lot of five down front, zero nose. Just trying to study tape, watch them and watch their previous games and whatever is going to help me prepare for Saturday that's what I'll do."
Coming off of a tough shut out to Penn State, quarterback Noah Vedral said the team's spirits are high and knows what is at stake this weekend. The team is working through the game plan and staying level headed.
"It's been exciting. I think the guys have done a pretty good job with the energy. We continue to learn the game plan," Vedral said. "In the first half of the week it's kind of heady. You got to think a little bit and process a lot of information, learning a defense, learning a scheme. We've done a good keeping energy and getting through the mentally tough part of the week. Like you said, there's some stuff on the line, a big week for us. But again, just like a long game season, you try to treat them all the same. You want to play the last 11 weeks like it was week 12 with the bowl game on the line or something like that. So you want to play every game like it's a one game season."
Rutgers did a good job flushing the last game away, yet also learning from it.
"It's definitely tough, because there is the emotional sting of losing the game in a way you didn't want to and obviously just losing in general with all the work the guys put it. Then there's also failure which happens when you kind of give up. You're failing in the process and trying to fail forward is a term coach uses sometimes," Vedral said. "We made mistakes, and we definitely hurt ourselves, but there's stuff we can learn from to fix that will ultimately help us and if we get that right, we're a better team for it. So looking for the spots in the tape in the game that gives you that hey, we can be a better team if we continue to fix this and improve this. I think that's a good thing that we do here."
TKR asked head coach Greg Schiano about Gus Zilinskas last week as he was coming off of his first extensive playing time. Well, the freshman from Colordado upped that as he made his first career start this past Saturday at Penn State. He played in every offensive snap.
"Gus is really improving and his arrow is up," Schiano said Monday. "We're just trying to find the best combination of five guys that produce the best result."
Krimin, a sixth-year player, has been a starter either at center or guard the last three years and has played in some capacity in five. He talked about Zilinskas, what he's seen from him, and how he helps him get better.
"It's all a process. He got his first college start and wherever the coaches need me, I'm gonna play so whatever I can do to help him as a player and as a man, I'm going to do," Krimin said. "At the end of the day, I do whatever I can for this team to win. He's got tremendous potential. He's really smart. He knows the offense well, and I feel comfortable playing next to him.
"It takes a lot of time and there's a lot of tape you got to watch and you have to study the playbook. But like I said, he's a great learner, and I can't wait to see what he does in the future."
Every coach loves going to a bowl game not only to reward the team for a great regular season and to see the players enjoying themselves from the game itself to the extra festivities they get to be a part of, but also because that means an extra few weeks of practices. Those extra practices are a lot of times used for developmental purposes as well as for preparation. Schiano understands that, but didn't want to go into detail about that until after the result from this upcoming Saturday's game against Maryland.
"It is important, but I'm gonna I'm gonna hold off on any of that talk," Schiano said. "If that's a pertinent question next week, I'll be glad to get into some detail."
Schiano mentioned on Monday that he gave all the older guys a chance to walk at Senior Day even they choose to ultimately come back for another year next season. Vedral has said in the past he'd like to come back, but was noncommittal on if he was going to take part in the ceremony or not. It's business as usual for the last guy off the field.
"I mean, coach gave all the older guys the option to like walk and then still come back if they choose to. I thought about talking about it, but at this point in the week, I'm kind of just not really focused on that," Schiano said. "I'm sure there'll be a conversation later this week about that. But right now just trying to get to Maryland, and we got to get to third downs and red zone tonight."
Many coaches who call plays like to be up high in the booth to get an overhead view of the field. For Rutgers, offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson is down on the sidelines.
With the offensive struggles this season, many have wondered if he should or would go up top. Schiano was asked about this by TKR on Monday.
"Yeah, I deferred to Sean where he wanted to be when we first got together, and he wanted to be on the field," Schiano said. "He still feels that way. I used to have stronger opinions on that. I've kind of gotten away from that. I think that's an individual thing."
There are a handful of super-seniors on the football team who are in their sixth year including Krimin, Julius Turner, Rashawn Battle, Tyreek Maddox-Williams, and Aslan Pugh. There are also a number of fifth-year guys.
Turner, who hails from Mississippi, saw a lot of playing time under the previous regime, but really thrived under Schiano and co. at the tilted nose position on the defensive line.
"We played the tilt nose when we were here last time. So guys like Ramel Meekins had great success," Schiano said. "When I looked at Julius, you could tell he had the two or three things. You need to have quick hands you need to have heavy hands. He has both of those things. And then you need to be able to move laterally and he can do that. It doesn't matter if you're 6-foot-6, you don't need those traits. So he had exactly what he needed to do it, and I think it's a position that he's very naturally inclined to play."
More than 30 players past and present will be recognized before kickoff on Saturday for Senior Day. Those on the team now will be honored as well as the seniors from a year ago who never got the ceremony due to COVID and no fans.
Melton and Turner are both looking forward to Senior Day, but knows the task at hand as well.
"Yeah, I'm happy to see my family and stuff like that," Melton said. "That's gonna be a great thing for everybody for all the seniors having their family there. We're really focused on Maryland right now. I know our family's gonna be there but we still have a game to play."
Said Turner: "It's gonna be cool. Got a lot of family coming up so that'd be a good opportunity to just get a little love you know before the game. But the real goal is really just focus on this game. and play the best we can and play our best game we played this season."
Turner and Melton have both been on campus playing football for the Scarlet Knights for quite some time now, but their last home game is on tap.
"I can't believe it. I can't," Turner said. "It's been a minute. I feel like I've been forever. I definitely can't believe it. We're just chopping every day just taking it all in."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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