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After watching Rutgers season opening win, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers walked away impressed with the Scarlet Knights. In particular, Babers said that Rutgers is a fast team on offense as well as special teams.
Rutgers beat Temple 61-14 this past Saturday in a game where the offense wasn’t necessarily lights out but was efficient. A strong defensive effort, including five forced turnovers, as well as big contributions on special teams, helped spur Rutgers to a blowout win.
Early in the third quarter, the Scarlet Knights held a 26-14 lead over the visiting Owls. Rutgers then began to roll over a tiring Temple side, in particular dominating along the lines to get the win.
Syracuse played a tighter game, beating MAC opponent Ohio 29-9 on the road in what was a loud and festive environment.
“They’re a good team they scored a lot of points. They scored and they got on them in the second quarter, really close to halftime and then they extended it in the third quarter,” Babers told reporters on Thursday.
“Once they had them they took them out – you know once they got them on the ropes, they took them out.
“So, this is an explosive crew. Their skill is really, really good; really fast. They can do things on kickoff returner and [with their] punt returners. This is a very, very skilled unit…We had some opportunities in the Ohio game when some guys got out and we could run them down and it gives you a chance and you have an opportunity to play goal line defense, and our defense did a fantastic job of keeping them out of the end zone. If they get out, they’re going to be really hard to go get. They’ll probably get all of it so we got to really get really cross our t’s and dot our i’s.”
Against Temple, junior wide receiver Aron Cruickshank had a big afternoon on special teams for Rutgers. He had two punt returns for 55 yards and had four kickoff returns for 113 yards.