Rutgers football, eligible for a bowl game for the first time since 2014, is not favored in Thursday’s Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl according to ESPN FPI.
Miami is favored at 66.5 percent to win the Pinstripe Bowl (2:15 p.m. ET, ESPN), which is played annually at Yankee Stadium.
Rutgers is 6-6 (3-5 Big Ten), a solid season for a still rebuilding team. In mid-October, Rutgers became bowl-eligible with their win at Indiana. Since then, they’ve lost four straight games.
Three of those four losses came against ranked opponents.
Miami comes into the game 7-5 with three losses in their last four games. Their final game of the season, at Boston College, saw Miami put together a strong 45-20 performance.
In the second week of the season, Miami beat then No. 23 Texas A&M. The Aggies were one of four ranked teams that Miami played this year.
Those other three games, all Miami losses, came by a combined 24 points.
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Two years ago, Rutgers stepped in to pinch-hit for Texas A&M in the Gator Bowl (the Aggies were unable to play due to COVID-19). Rutgers only had a few days notice to participate in that game.
Head coach Greg Schiano on Wednesday said that this Pinstripe Bowl experience, with a full ramp-up to bowl week, has been a great experience for the program.
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“Well, it’s been completely different. I mean, we had eight days to mobilize a team, get them back on campus, get some semblance of a walk-through and then get on a plane, which was almost impossible to find back then because it was kind of like the second wave of COVID, so you couldn’t get flight crews, you couldn’t get planes,” Schiano said on a Wednesday conference call.
“In retrospect, who knows if that was the best decision. I just love playing. I love competing. So we had a chance to go play one more that year, and we did it.
“This year, totally different. It was our traditional bowl, the way we prepare, the way that we develop. All the events and all the things that we do here that make bowl games a reward. Night and day. Now we have a great opportunity to play a really good Miami team at Yankee Stadium. We’re really fired up to do that.”