While he doesn’t sound ready to hop on the Rutgers train, ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel believes that the Scarlet Knights could make a little noise in the Big Ten this season. In fact, Thamel thinks it is entirely possible that Rutgers could exceed their season outlook for wins this season.
The College GameDay podcast, hosted by Rece Davis, dissected the Big Ten this week. Davis noted that the total projections for Rutgers this season stands at four wins. Davis, ever thoughtful and nuanced, didn’t dunk on Rutgers by any stretch but he did take the under on that win total.
Thamel did his homework on Rutgers, noting that offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca’s hiring this offseason should help an offense that was second from the bottom in the Big Ten last season.
“I’m going to take the over on the over on Rutgers. I feel like the presence of Kirk Ciarrocca who Greg Schiano was fired in his first tenure there. Bringing back Kirk gives them baseline functionality, which they just didn’t have last year on offense,” Evans said on the ESPN College GameDay podcast.
“Now whether Gavin Wimsatt becomes a guy who really develops we need to see that pretty quick because it was pretty clear last year that he didn’t. I love Samuel Brown their tailback.”
The defense, however, must be the identity of this team and is clearly ahead of the offense in terms of the overarching development of the roster and the two-deep. Thamel likes the unit, praising defensive coordinator Joe Harasymiak while singling out two veteran players on the Scarlet Knights defense as ones to watch in 2023.
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If the defense can be solid, then Rutgers can be competitive and perhaps make a move up the Big Ten standings.
“But I really feel like their defense was pretty strong last year, relatively speaking. You obviously have to throw away some of that when talking about bottom Big Ten teams. You have to throw away some of the Penn State, Michigan-type results,” Thamel said.
“But I feel like they had winnable games, especially in Nebraska where if they just didn’t mess it up, they could have ended up winning the game. And so I feel like Virginia Tech to me is a winnable game for them. I don’t think that’s crazy. Like I just don’t think what anything Virginia Tech has done in the last year makes you think they can roll in and win there. And that’s not a knock on Virginia Tech. They’re just rebuilding and they’ve earned it. Yeah, but I think there’s a better possibility they start 3-0 than 0-3…I would say that., So I’m probably a little more bullish on the Scarlet Knights because when Samuel Brown was healthy last year, their offense was fairly functional.
“The case there is the case the new offense gets them back to functional. I think the defense with Joe Harasymiak and Greg Schiano sort behind it – I feel I feel pretty good about it. So yeah, you know, they just got a lot of guys who played a lot of snaps: Deion Jennings played a lot of snaps there. Tyreem Powell played a lot of snaps there. So I don’t think it’s hard to get to five.”
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