Could this be the week that Rutgers football breaks its streak of Big Ten losses at home?
Rutgers has lost 22 straight Big Ten games at home. It is a surprising stat given that the Scarlet Knights have won five Big Ten games over the past two years, all on the road. On Saturday, they host Indiana in a game that the Scarlet Knights hope will break this cycle of conference home losses.
Before their bye week, Rutgers nearly broke through and notched that conference home win, losing 14-13 to Nebraska. It was a game where Rutgers was up 13-0 at halftime.
On the Big Ten Network this week, analyst Gerry DiNardo believes that the home field environment at Rutgers should be good again for homecoming.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a really good crowd. I expect it to be the same. I would think that this absolutely could be the week you know, there’s so many coaching decisions in this one,” DiNardo said on the Big Ten Network.
“First of all, Greg Schiano has changed offensive coordinators – he let Sean Gleeson go. Greg, I believe will really pressure the Indiana offense. I mean, that’s Greg style defensively.”
DiNardo also thinks that Indiana brings some intrigue into this game. The Hoosiers lost to Maryland 38-33 last week and have struggled this season.
“And then you have an offensive staff with Indiana. Tom (Indiana head coach Tom Allen) made a change with the offensive line coach and he’s got Rod Carey who was the head coach in Northern Illinois and then head coach at Temple and I watched the last game and taped the first game that Rod Carey coached and I think he has had some influence with Walt Bell, the offensive coordinator, and what they’re doing offensively,” DiNardo said.
“Walt is a guy that spreads the wide receivers way away from the box. It looks really strange just to look at it from a sideline view of it. So it’s an unusual scheme, but it’s hard to run the ball from it’s so easy to throw the ball. I think Rod Carey maybe has brought more run game to it. So you have these two coaching staffs that have had internal changes, most desperately needing a win. And so it’s going to be a really interesting matchup. The defense of Rutgers probably can control the game more than the other three units.”
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