The Monday Morning Kickoff
This weekend marked an overdue bye for Rutgers as the 2-6 Scarlet Knights will prepare to close out the rest of the season with four straight Big Ten games. The first opponent is a 4-4 Indiana team that snapped a three-game losing streak with a 42-36 win over Maryland this past weekend.
That Indiana game will take place at noon inside High Point Solutions Stadium on Saturday and mark the second consecutive start for RU redshirt sophomore quarterback Gio Rescigno, who used last week as a time to heal up a bit.
“Gio needs to get healthy. He strained his hamstring in last week’s game and went from a dual-threat quarterback to a one-dimensional quarterback," head coach Chris Ash said last week. "But he continues to do a good job. He’s got to get healthy just like the rest of our football team. We have a number of players who have been limited in practice, but have gone out to play in games and they need to get healthy.”
Later today, Ash will return to the podium for his weekly press conference inside The Hale Center with a start time of 12:30 p.m. That will be followed by each coordinator as Drew Mehringer and Jay Niemann will also address the media. Stay logged onto Scarlet Nation for LIVE coverage from The Hale Center.
On the recruiting front, Rutgers lost a commit from the class of 2017 as Salem senior Jonathan Taylor announced his decommitment via Twitter Saturday night. Rutgers looks as though it will pursue another running back in his place and more on those targets can be found inside The Round Table.
Rutgers’ other running back commit, Jon Lovett, landed a Penn State offer last week and that continues to be a situation Scarlet Nation will monitor closely.
The RU staff was also busy last week visiting prospects and even extending some new offers. At St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., there were a host of prospects that landed RU offers.
Among them was class of 2018 wide receiver Tavares Kelly.
“Rutgers has their eye on me for a while and Coach [Aaron] Henry came out to our practice today,” Kelly said last week. “My coach told me he couldn’t speak with me, but then my coach told me they want to offer. I was astonished to be completely honest. I wasn’t really expecting an offer, but when I found out, I was at a loss of words.”