Rutgers Football: Why 2018 will be best year of Chris Ash era

1. The only way is up

With a six-win season in 2018, Rutgers would match its combined win total of the last two seasons. This also happens to be the time that has elapsed since Ash took over as head coach.

Given those numbers, it is increasingly evident that the Scarlet Knights have not produced a quality product on the field during game days and thus, they can only seek to improve this season.

For Rutgers teams of old, this might have been a much easier task to fulfill but when playing in the Big Ten, nothing is guaranteed. Going up against some of the nation’s toughest adversaries — not to mention teams loaded with top recruits and potential NFL-caliber talent — makes for a steep uphill climb.

The hopes aren’t completely in the doldrums. Rather, it may be on the horizon. A young resurgence by underclassmen can be the catalyst for change that a reeling Rutgers program needs to crawl out of the bottom of the standings.

Winning is often times cyclical in nature and the sequence hasn’t been in Rutgers’ favor of late. It only takes one season for things to take a turn for the better and the Scarlet Knights are looking to do just that in 2018.