Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach John McKay summed up Rutgers’ performance against Wisconsin quite well in his quote to the press. The Scarlet Knights suffered one of their most devastating losses in the Schiano 2.0 era, as the Badgers defeated them 42-7. The Wisconsin offense dominated the Rutgers defense more and more as the game progressed. The Knights didn’t start generating offense until the latter part of the second half. The Knights struggled with their special teams, with a blocked field goal and multiple ineffective punts.
The Troubles of Rutgers
Beginning with the most severe part of the offense, the Knights failed to gain a first down on four consecutive possessions in the first half. Seven of the initial nine possessions for Rutger ended in punts, while the remaining two ended with a blocked field goal and a turnover on downs.
Rutgers’ revamped passing game was absent today as they only completed 12 out of 32 attempts for 103 yards, averaging just 3.2 yards per pass. The Knight’s receivers experienced numerous puzzling drops, with three occurring consecutively on one play, leading to Rutgers going three and out. This is a pattern that has continued from the previous week with the Knights experiencing multiple crucial dropped catches against Nebraska as well.
Despite Kaliakmanis having good protection from the offensive line, the Knights still faced several challenges during the game.
The Knights’ running game did not perform significantly improved. Because of the difficulties with passing, Wisconsin was able to crowd the box against the Knights and effectively limit the running game, except for a couple of quarterback runs by Kaliakmanis and Ajani Sheppard where they were able to break free. The rushing attack gained 168 yards while carrying the ball 35 times, averaging 4.8 yards per carry and scoring one touchdown.
Nevertheless, excluding the quarterback scrambles, Rutgers running backs were only able to gain 100 yards on 27 carries, averaging approximately 3.7 yards per rush. This is another trend from last week that the Knights must deal with promptly. Rutgers has been established as a team that prioritizes running the ball, but in the past two weeks their main strength has been nullified.
The Defense outperformed the offense slightly, creating some turnovers and allowing only 14 points by halftime. Nevertheless, despite ongoing key injuries crippling the defense and new ones suffered during the game, it became inevitable that they couldn’t hold on indefinitely. The Knight’s defense began the day missing two key playmakers, Robert Longerbeam and Tyreem Powell. Throughout the match, safety Flip Dixon and defensive end Aaron Lewis were injured and went down on the field but eventually came back to play.
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