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.
2. The defense needs to take a big step up
For the second time in two weeks, the Rutgers defense has surrendered 50+ points to an opponent. The difference between Week 2 and Week 3, however, is that one of the game was against a perennial powerhouse in Ohio State. The other was against Kansas.
The Scarlet Knights came out flat and were already partially dismantled by halftime. Rutgers ceded nearly 300 offensive yards in the first 30 minutes of play.
On Saturday, Rutgers had a lot of issues stopping the run — yielding four rushing touchdowns to Kansas — most of which coming in the second half of the game. The Jayhawks scorched the Rutgers defense for 400 rushing yards, which isn’t a good sign for the Scarlet Knights.
Even though the offense didn’t have a strong showing whatsoever, the defense also did not help in the cause either. Given Rutgers’ late offensive struggles, it is virtually impossible for the Scarlet Knights to have a chance of winning if the defense gives up more than a combined 100 points in consecutive games.
Rutgers has much to clean up, both offensively and defensively, although it has a good opportunity to get back on track against Buffalo at home next week. The Scarlet Knights will be tested especially in the secondary having to go up against Anthony Johnson, one of the top pass-catchers from a season ago.
1. Bowl chances are in jeopardy
Rutgers has a brutal stretch of games to close out the regular season following its Oct. 28 bye week. In that stretch of games, the Scarlet Knights match up with four preseason top-15 opponents.
The likelihood of Rutgers receiving an invitation to a bowl game may have taken a crushing blow following the loss on the road to Kansas — mostly because it was imperative for the team to win six games before its bye week.
Now, the Scarlet Knights have a very small window for error against some teams that are either close to even or slightly above the level that Rutgers can contend with. Some of these teams include Indiana and Northwestern.
Oddly enough, a 5-7 season is still an improvement for the Scarlet Knights in the perspective of a year-to-year outlook. In head coach Chris Ash’s first two seasons at the helm of the program, he won two games in 2016 and four games last year.
However, a five-win season won’t propel Rutgers to its first bowl game since 2014 as it needs six wins to at least have a chance of receiving a bid to a bowl game in the first place.
Kansas was a game on the schedule that looked winnable for the Scarlet Knights, but this bad performance exposed the fact that Rutgers may have more issues than one might have expected at the onset of the season.
Is there a chance for Rutgers to turn things around? Absolutely, because after all, it is still only the third week of the year. Is there also a chance for this season to be doomed? That is also a possibility.
After two decisive losses, it will be interesting to see how the Scarlet Knights are able to respond next week when they return to the Garden State to play in front of a home crowd.