Rutgers football suffered a bad loss to Kansas, falling in blowout fashion on the road. What does this mean for the Scarlet Knights’ season?
The last time Rutgers and Kansas met, Rutgers took care of the Jayhawks at home, 27-14. In Lawrence, the Scarlet Knights came out on the wrong end of a sloppy game, losing to Kansas 55-14.
For Kansas, the win came a week after it snapped a 46-game road losing streak — which is the second-longest streak in the history of college football. For Rutgers, the defeat comes a week removed from a blowout loss in its Big Ten opener against Ohio State.
The margin of loss was both stunning and unexpected for Rutgers. What does the loss mean for the Scarlet Knights’ season? Here are three takeaways to break down what could happen next.
3. The turnovers need to be drastically reduced
Rutgers committed four turnovers in the first half — for any team that’s an unwieldy number of giveaways. In total, Rutgers either threw an interception or coughed up the ball six times throughout the game.
It is not very feasible to win a football game if the ball is turned over six times. The Rutgers’ defense was unable to generate a turnover of its own but did block a kick — which is something that Rutgers has excelled in over the years.
The Scarlet Knights could not have performed much worse than they did in the first half, mostly because of the turnovers. At halftime, Kansas led 31-14 and owned a win probability percentage of 92.4 percent.
After throwing three interceptions, Artur Sitkowski was replaced by Gio Rescigno. Sitkowski completed just seven of his 19 passes for 47 yards without throwing a touchdown pass. To add even more fuel to the fire, two of Sitkowksi’s interceptions allowed the Jayhawks to put points on the board by way of a pick six.
This now brings his touchdown to turnover ratio to 1:4 on the season. Rescigno was slightly more effective than Sitkowski, registering seven completions for 77 yards.
The quarterback play remains a question mark for the offense, as its production has been stagnant over the past two weeks. This was one of the most problematic aspects of the team last year.
Perhaps a poor all-around showing fed into the lack of offense against Kansas, but if Rutgers wants to see some form of success in 2018, it will have to manufacture much more offense than the product on the field on Saturday.