Atlantic Week Mailbag
You sent in questions via a message in a bottle and we actually responded!
We looked back at how last season went on the banks of the ol' Rare and Tan earlier this week. Now let's look ahead to Greg Schiano's 18 (!!) season with the Scarlet Knights and speculate wildly on their fortunes.
Rutgers Scarlet Knights, 2025 Recap: So Close to Bowl Eligibility, So Far from Relevance
At least they beat Maryland
Off Tackle Republic
Schedule
9/3: v UMass Minutemen
9/11: at Boston College Eagles
9/19: v USC Trojans
9/25: v Howard Bison
10/3: v Indiana Hoosiers
10/17: at Maryland Terrapins
10/24: at Northwestern Wildcats
10/31: v Michigan Wolverines
11/7: at Wisconsin Badgers
11/14: v Nebraska Cornhuskers
11/21: at Penn State Nittany Lions
11/28: v Michigan State Spartans
Predictions
Kind of...: Rutgers has good quality at RB and WR, so if the new QB (undecided right now) is effective, the offense should continue to be reasonably good. But the defense was terrible last year. In all 7 of their losses, they gave up 30+ points. There's a new DC, but the personnel does not seem to have been enhanced.
UMass and Howard should be walkovers, but other than than, any wins will be be a fight. The Boston College game looms large. Maybe Rutgers can catch USC jet-lagged for the 9/19 game, but that seems doubtful. So a win over BC is their only hope to a 3-2 start (they're not beating Indiana) heading into a crucial road trip to Maryland and Northwestern. Squint right, and they're 5-2 coming out of that and could plausibly go 7-5 with November home wins over Nebraska and MSU. That said, I basically just provided a scenario where they win all five coin flips. 5-7 seems a lot more likely. Maybe even 4-8 since three of those coin flips are on the road.
BoilerUp89: Beat Boston College and maybe Maryland to go 4-8 (1-7). I suppose Wisconsin and Northwestern are possibilities but those are road games and Wisconsin will either have turned things around or will be getting a dead cat bounce from their interim head coach by that point in the season. As for the Northwestern game, I'll just point out that Northwestern has never lost a football game at their stadium.
Transient Buckeye: That schedule...is rough. All three non-con games should be winnable. Rutgers will be a heavy favorite against UMass and Howard the Duck (singular). Boston College has been pretty bad of late, and though it's a road game, it's a very short trip. But the Big Ten schedule is nasty. There's no Ohio State or Oregon. But it feels like almost all of Rutgers' winnable conference games (Maryland, Northwestern, Wisconsin) are on the road. They might pick off MSU at home in the season finale, but they'll need at least 2 conference wins in their back pocket before that game to have a shot at 6-6 and bowl eligibility. I don't think they get there. Let's take the glass-half-full approach, and say that they sweep the non-conference, but go 2-7 in Big Ten play to finish at 5-7 overall. Maybe they can get an APR bowl bid? 4-8 feels slightly more likely than 6-6.
