PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Kyle Monangai not only led Rutgers football in rushing on Saturday night, but he also seemingly put the offense on his back for stretches in the second half. It was a show of character that head coach Greg Schiano says he first heard about Monangai dating back to when the running back was a senior in high school.
Monangai, who finished with a career-high 165 rushing yards on 28 carries, came up big for the Scarlet Knights at a time in the second half when it seemed like the game could potentially be slipping away.
With Rutgers holding a narrow 13-7 lead in the fourth quarter, the Scarlet Knights offense woke up from its doldrums. The prior three possessions all ended in punts. But after Temple scored a touchdown to cut the Rutgers lead to six points, the Scarlet Knights offense finally responded.
The unit went seven plays and 75 yards to get a crucial touchdown. Monangai had 57 yards on the drive including a one-yard touchdown dive for the 19-7 lead (the two-point conversion failed).
“As the game goes on, you start to get a feel for the other team, definitely but we just kind of stuck to our keys,” Monangai said.
“We’re not going to to trick anybody, you know, tough was a great team. But, you know, at the end of the day, when you’re running plays, you’re running the ball. It’s kind of just about man on man and I’m moving the guy in front of you and I fell running back you know, obviously me finding the right holes and hitting i and I’m trying to make it a little bit played but yeah, I think it was just a matter of just, you know, feeling, get a feel for what they were doing and then once I got that was kind of kind of made it easier out there.”
Coming out of high school at Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, New Jersey), Monangai was under-recruited. Following his senior year in the fall of 2020, he held several offers but only one was from a Power Five program (Cal Berkeley).
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Shortly after Schiano returned as head coach in December of 2020, he spent time on the phone with head coach Dan Sabella.
That’s when he heard about Monangai not just as a player but as a person.
“Well, I didn’t really know for sure, you never know for sure but I asked his high school coach,” Schiano said.
“He said, ‘I’m telling you, coach, I’ll stand on the table for this guy,’ and I trusted his opinion. We took him on that.
“Because a lot of people told me ‘Don’t – he’s too small; he can’t do it.’ When his own high school coach talked with the certainty that he did – I’ve known him for a long time, he’s a heck of a coach. So when he said it, I said, ‘OK. I’m going to trust you on this one’. He was right.”
Monangai became one of the first players Schiano offered upon his return.
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Perhaps what was most impressive about Monangai’s Saturday night performance wasn’t just his output but also his workload. For any running back at any level, 28 carries is a high amount of ouches.
For someone who runs as physically as Monangai does, it is grueling.
But seemingly, Monangai got stronger and stronger as the game wore on.
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“I like to prepare myself for any situation. If I got to go in a drive eight straight plays, eight straight runs you know that’s what I got to do,” Monangai said.
“You know, coach J.B. (Jay Butler, director of sports performance) gets us in the best shape we can be in in the summer. And then through training camp – building and trying to get stronger and faster, more explosive, being able to maintain those long drives and that’s what we’re built for. So I had preparation taking care of my body.”
It was a second straight big game for Monangai. Last week in a 24-7 win over Northwestern, Monangai had a beautiful 15-year touchdown run and produced a massive block.