The Rutgers football team opens up the latest season on Saturday, Sept. 3 at Boston College. Ball hits foot at 12:00 p.m.
To get you prepared for the Scarlet Knights and Eagles matchup, here is a notebook of he hot topics surrounding Rutgers on the gridiron this week.
One player who was on the mend is running back Aaron Young. Young is expected to be a key component of the backfield, but his status for Week 1 is up in the air. The junior was injured in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl back on New Year’s Eve. He did get work in during training camp, but the team brought him along slowly.
Aside from Young, the Scarlet Knights have Kyle Monangai, Al-Shadee Salaam, and Samuel Brown battling for carries and touches.
“It's not certain yet. We're going to see,” Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said on Monday. “Again, these three practices will be big on what he's able to do and what he's able to do at the level we need to do to win the game. So there's really two questions. What can he do? And can he do it at the level we need to win the game? We'll figure that out. But we've got a good mix. We're trying to figure out who is healthy, who is not, who is ready to go. And we'll have somebody to carry it.”
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No depth chart was released with the game notes. Schiano said they have yet to go public with a decision on who will start at quarterback between Noah Vedral, Evan Simon, and Gavin Wimsatt.
"No, we haven't settled yet on who will start," Schiano said. "I think they all had good training camps. We're going to do whatever it takes to win. I don't know how many you'll see. Whatever it takes to give us the best chance to win.
"Sean (Gleeson), myself and the offensive staff, if we feel that's the best way to win a game, then we'll play multiple guys. If not we'll just play one. We're such a young team and we're figuring out who we are -- we have three practices this week that are really important. You get 25 practices leading up to the first game. So this is about an eighth of our practices we still have left to prepare for this game. They're going to be very important."
Vedral has the most experience being a sixth-year player while Simon played a good chunk last year too. Wimsatt enrolled early as a freshman last September and saw spot duty in four games.
“There's tons of areas of growth,” Schiano said. “You're talking about a freshman at the quarterback position. There's so much to learn at the quarterback position. I just think his overall understanding of everything that's going on -- when you're really playing the position at a high level, much like Phil's (Jurkovec) playing it right now at Boston College; he knows everything about the offense; he knows where everybody's supposed to be. When you get to that level -- we've had quarterbacks at that stage here -- when you get to that level and you have the physical gifts like Gavin does, that's a lot of fun.
“Right now, certainly, his physical gifts are ahead of his understanding just by pure time, the time he's had to learn it. But he's very, very gifted. And he does love football, and he works at it. So, when you have that combination, it's just a matter of time.”
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Speaking of Jurkovec, the 6-foot-5, 214-pounder from Pittsburgh is thought of highly for the 2023 NFL Draft. He was banged up last year with a hand injury, but he’s a dual threat signal caller who has thrown for 3,472 yards and 24 touchdowns to go along with 472 yards and eight more scores the last two years. He also added 222 passing yards and two scores and 130 rushing yards with Notre Dame in 2019.
“Very talented quarterback,” Schiano said. “He's an NFL quarterback, which, when you say that, that means a lot to me. He's got a big arm. He's very mobile, very athletic. So when things break down, he extends plays. He doesn't just run to run. He extends. He extends -- has a really good feel for the pocket. A very good presence in the pocket. I know John (McNulty), having worked with John, John is really a good quarterback coach and a guy who makes a quarterback very aware of rush patterns, escapability, how to extend plays. So I'm sure that there will be improvement there as well.”
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Talking about the offensive line for Rutgers, Ireland Brown played in nine games last season including six starts at left guard after shifting over from defense. Brown, who won the Mark Mills Second Effort Award in the spring, transferred from Boston College for Schiano’s first season back “On the Banks” in 2020. Brown transitioned from defense to offense last season out of need and has run away with it.
“It wasn't so much what I identified. It was really what we needed,” Schiano said. “It's been no secret that that has been our toughest spot, the offensive line, since we arrived. And Ireland had the ability to do it, we thought, and certainly that's proven out to be true. He's become a good offensive lineman. And I'm grateful that he's here.
“I know it's special for him because he's going back to where he initially went to school. He transferred here from Boston College. Hopefully we can keep him contained there because he's touching the ball every play. Can't get too excited.”
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Much of training camp circled around two positions -- the quarterbacks and linebackers. Drew Singleton is still hoping for a chance to play this season at Rutgers, though there is no update on the final hoop the Scarlet Knights are trying to go through. Rutgers is thin, young, and inexperienced at linebacker, and it will be a position to watch.
“There's no development on Singleton, we're working on it,” Schiano said. “We're not just going to give up. Because I truly believe -- what's happening to him isn't right. But that's just my opinion. I'm not the governing body.
“But as far as the room, they're getting better. They just don't have game reps. There's not a lot of game reps going on there. So they'll figure it out. They're good players. They're going to figure it out. It's just sometimes until you do it in a game you don't know exactly what it feels like. And I think practice is really important, but I think games are just a little bit different.”
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There are a number of coaches on the opposite sideline for the Eagles that either coached under Schiano at Rutgers or with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or were Scarlet Knights themselves as players. Jeff Hafley, the head coach, is a Montvale, N.J. native who spent the 2011 season as the defensive backs coach at Rutgers under Schiano. He then went on to coach the secondary with the Bucs and later replaced Schiano as the Ohio State defensive coordinator in 2019 before taking the BC job.
Tem Lekabu coached the outside linebackers at RU from 2010-11 and then was with Tampa as a defensive assistant from 2012-13. John McNulty had two stints at Rutgers from 2004-2008 under Schiano as the wide receivers coach and then the offensive coordinator before he was the QB with the Bucs. He also was the OC for the Scarlet Knights under previous head coach Chris Ash from 2018-19.
Former Rutgers quarterback Steve Shimko and running back Savon Huggins -- one of the top recruits Rutgers has ever landed -- are assistant coaches at those respective positions as well. There are more ties from Ohio State too on staff.
“There's a lot of good friends on that sideline, you're right. I'm really proud of Jeff,” Schiano said. “I knew Jeff would be a head coach. Jeff was great for us here at Rutgers. He was also great for us at Tampa Bay. You talk about Tem Lukabu, who was with us in both places, and John McNulty, who was with us in both places. Those are really good football coaches and good people.
“There's others too. There's some of our former players. Savon Huggins, he's up there, doing a great job. I'm proud of him. And Steve Shimko, who coached in the NFL and is back in college. So it's really good. And there's a guy that worked with me at Ohio State, was my graduate assistant there, Matt Thurin, who handles the special teams and works in the secondary. He's an excellent young coach. So there's a lot of familiarity. It will be a little strange because I care about those guys, but when you're playing in a game, you're competing, and you're trying to win.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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