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Published Nov 14, 2019
Tale of the Tape: Rutgers
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Kevin Noon  •  DottingTheEyes
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We warned people last week that this might be the shortest of all of the Tale of the Tape features for a multitude of reasons, first and foremost that this might be the worst team that Ohio State will face this season.

Ohio State's non-conference schedule is not as bad as some make it out to be, even with the absence of a Power Five squad on the list. The Sagarin Ratings have Cincinnati at No. 25, Florida Atlantic at 64 and Miami (Ohio) at 85. Northwestern and Maryland are right in the vicinity of the RedHawks as they are 82 and 83 respectively.

Rutgers on the other hand? Try 138th.

Who else is in that range? Try Villanova, the same school that Ohio State played in basketball on Wednesday (yes, they do have a football team). They are 131st.

How about Wofford? That is the same team that everyone panned Clemson for playing a few weeks back. They are 137th.

Hell, New Hampshire, the same school that produced head coach Ryan Day is not that far away, sitting at No. 147.

The point is for as historically good as Ohio State may be, Rutgers is the polar opposite. There are only three teams with sub-100 ratings in the Sagarin Ratings this year and strangely enough, they all come from the SEC and the Big Ten with Vanderbilt at 109 and Arkansas at 117. But even according to the metrics that Sagarin uses, Arkansas should beat Rutgers on a neutral field by about 10 points.

So, that is why we are not going to go into a full write-up here, because there really is no point. The Scarlet Knights have a depleted roster, have fired their head coach and all attention around Piscataway (N.J.) is focused on who will be leading the team next year rather than what is going on this year.

So, since we are kind of stuck writing this piece, let's just get to it and go to the Tale of the Tape.

Ohio State Defense vs. Rutgers Offense 
Ohio StateStatRankRutgersStatRank

Rushing Defense

88.2 YPG

8th

Rushing Offense

136.4 YPG

99th

Pass Eff. Defense

91.34

1st

Passing Offense

143.9 YPG

121st

Scoring Defense

8.6 PPG

1st

Scoring Offense

14.7 PPG

128th

Ohio State Defensive Backs vs. Rutgers QB/WR/TE

Rutgers is not going to beat anyone throwing the ball. Artur Sitkowski is sitting for the remainder of the season and Johnny Langan has been thrust into the quarterback role, ready or not. He won't be ready for this challenge on Saturday. The freshman signal caller has been thrown to the wolves and has six interceptions to three touchdowns, has not completed more than 13 passes against a Division I (FBS) team and threw for ONE YARD against Indiana, on 13 attempts for that matter. Rutgers' top receiver is STILL Raheem Blackshear, who played in just four games before taking the redshirt option this season. His 29 catches are still six more than Bo Melton who has finally surpassed him in yardage, 312 to 310. When you take Blackshear's two TDs out of the mix, there are only four receiving touchdowns on this roster. But that's okay, because Rutgers only has 451 yards of passing against Big Ten foes, and one touchdown. In Big Ten play, about every 15th pass attempt is intercepted. Jabbie Mohamed has that one conference receiving touchdown for Rutgers, he scored that against Illinois where he had 64 of the team's 86 receiving yards. It is going to be a long day for Langan, provided he has time to throw the ball. Freshman Cole Snyder sits behind him on the depth chart as the No. 2 quarterback and has not recorded a stat yet. It would be almost abuse to roll someone out for their first action against the Buckeyes in a situation like this.

Ohio State Linebackers vs. Rutgers Running Backs

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