PISCATAWAY – With a big matchup against a nationally-ranked team at hand that would put them firmly in the spotlight, the Rutgers football program went with a “Saturday Knight Live” theme at SHI Stadium.
Unfortunately for them, the “Not Ready For Primetime Players and Coaches” showed up.
Coming off a tough loss, the No. 8-ranked Oregon Ducks came to Piscataway for the first time in program history and demolished the Scarlet Knights, 56-10, in a game that was by no imaginable metric other than the big numbers on the scoreboard ever even remotely that close.
“We ran into a buzzsaw tonight,” said head coach Greg Schiano. “Not acceptable by our team. I’ve got a lot that I’ve got to think about, a lot that I’ve got to do. As the head coach of this program, it’s my responsibility, and very disappointed. Very good football team, Oregon, there’s no doubt about it. They played with a heck of an edge, and we didn’t…wasn’t for a lack of effort. It was execution, and that falls back on the coach. So we will get it fixed. We’ve got six days to do it.”
A Rutgers media guide that’s nearly 250 pages thick doesn’t list the all-time record for total yards allowed in the history of the program, but the stunning 750 of them that the Ducks accrued on Saturday night is the most they’ve coughed up since joining the Big Ten and may be the most ever against it.
That’s saying something given the “Birthplace of College Football” moniker.
A beleaguered Rutgers defense allowed 441 of those yards by the time the whistle to mark the end of the first half was mercifully blown in a game that was already well out of reach to the tune of a 42-3 score.
Call it whatever you want. But don’t, at least according to Schiano, call it embarrassing.
“‘Embarrassed’ is a tough word,” he said. “Embarrassed would be if you didn’t have guys and players and coaches that are working their tail off. I’m very disappointed in those numbers. I would agree with you, 750 is a huge number, one that I’ve never — I can’t say I’ve never seen it, but I don’t remember it ever. So yeah, we have to — again, I have to take a hard look at everything, everyone, and you know, 40 minutes after the game is not the time to take a look at it. I’ll have to have some tough nights and days here and figure out what we need to do.”
Things certainly don’t get any easier for the Scarlet Knights, who have fallen to 3-4 on the season — including four straight losses in conference play — and now have three straight road games on their schedule
As for Oregon, it essentially cruised after their big first half, continuing an FBS-best 10-game road win streak and 36 consecutive victories against unranked teams.
Head coach Dan Lanning led the charge down the Ducks sideline after the game in high-fiving a large contingent of fans — the vast majority of the 53,127 fans in the sellout crowd who stuck around after halftime were all in green and yellow — and star quarterback Dante Moore, who threw for four touchdown passes and 290 yards before being pulled in the third quarter, stuck around to sign autographs for fans long after the game had ended.
The vibes in the other locker room? Not quite the same.
“I’m a believer you are what your record says you are,” Schiano said. “You can have whatever feelings and thoughts you want but they are theories. That’s why you have a scoreboard and that’s why you have a record. Right now, we are a 3-4 football team…I’ve got to look at everything. But it starts looking at me because I’m the leader and I didn’t get it done tonight.”
