Ohio State Buckeyes opponent breakdowns: Rutgers

Opponents: Florida Atlantic | Cincinnati | Indiana | Miami (OH) | Nebraska | Michigan State | Northwestern | Wisconsin | Maryland

The college football season is still weeks away but anticipation is starting to build as the calendar turns from June to July and we are closing in on less than two months from the first kickoffs of the season.

Much has been made of Ohio State’s schedule this season with its lack of a Power Five non-conference opponent on it, but don’t let anyone convince you that this schedule does not pose more than its fair share of problems for a team that will be breaking in not only a new quarterback but essentially a new head coach as Ryan Day takes over for Urban Meyer as the Buckeyes look to defend their back-to-back Big Ten championships.

The lack of a P5 non-conference opponent may overshadow the fact that Ohio State has about as difficult of a crossover schedule as a Big Ten East team can have with games against Nebraska, Wisconsin and Northwestern and the schedule maker did this team no favors with a final two of Penn State and Michigan to wrap up the regular season in November.

There is not a lot that can be said about Rutgers at this point. The Scarlet Knights have struggled to find any success since joining the Big Ten. Their first year in the league, the 2014 season was the best as Kyle Flood was still playing with many of Greg Schiano’s kids and the drop was quick and severe as Rutgers has not won more than four games in any season since that eight-win year.

Last year was almost as bad as it could get with a final record of 1-11 as the Scarlet Knights just have a hard time keeping local talent home and even catching a break during a game.

Former Ohio State assistant Chris Ash has had three years and credit to the administration at Rutgers to stick it out as Ash works to turn things around but you do have to wonder how much longer they are going to stick it out and if not Ash, then who, short of Schiano coming back to Piscataway (N.J.).

As for the series with Ohio State? Don’t ask. The Buckeyes and Scarlet Knights have played five times leading up to this upcoming season. Rutgers has scored a grand total of 27 points over those five games. Ohio State’s lowest point total in any of those five games? 49 points in 2015. Yes, it has been quite lopsided.

Last Year: 1-11, 0-9 Big Ten East

There really is not much to say about the past season for Rutgers and this will almost undoubtedly be the shortest year-in-review section of this entire series.

Rutgers won its season opener against Texas State in a convincing 35-7 win and then everything came crashing down as the Scarlet Knights dropped their next 11 games. Rutgers felt the growing pains of a young quarterback in Artur Sitkowski and it was a rough year for the promising signal caller in a year where he completed less than 50-percent of his passing attempts and had just four touchdowns against 18 interceptions. In fact, Rutgers as a team only had five passing touchdowns on the year and the numbers were not that much better on the ground with just 12 touchdowns, an average of one per game.

Even with how bad the numbers looked, there were some games that Rutgers ‘coulda, shoulda’ won. The Scarlet Knights put up 10 points in the 4th quarter against Indiana to close the lead to just seven points with close to four minutes left in that game but couldn’t get the ball back from the Hoosiers to have a final try and a game-tying score.

Rutgers had a 15-7 lead on Northwestern, the same Northwestern team that won the Big Ten West. It was the third quarter and the Scarlet Knights had to settle for a 26-yard field goal to go up by eight points after they could not find the end zone. Northwestern would score the final 10 points to escape with the win.

Finally, Rutgers had the hapless Michigan State offense on the ropes and took a 10-7 lead midway through the 4th quarter only to see the Spartans answer with just under four minutes left to steal a 14-10 win in East Lansing (Mich.).

So yes, the gap between the top teams and Rutgers is still quite far and wide but the Scarlet Knights had three league games that they had every opportunity to win, more or less. Now, if Rutgers would have won those games, we would still be talking about a 4-8 team and the praise would be in short supply but there is a world of difference in the records of 1-11 and 4-8.