It is well known that Rutgers football is in the early stages of it’s rebuild. Greg Schiano is trying to improve on a 5-8 record last season. It is his second stint with the team and – although he took them to new heights previously – it is a much bigger task to climb to the top of your conference when that conference is the Big Ten.
ESPN recently released their annual ranking of all 131 FBS programs, this time with a twist. All of the teams were separated into tiers in a true attempt to remove contenders from pretenders and point out who is on their way up.
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There are a total of 24 tiers. With tiers containing as little as three schools and as many as 11 – the ranking was done in conjunction with some of the best prognosticators in the world – the writers for The Simpsons.
Rutgers has so much competition in the Big Ten. So much so, that Tier 1 – “The clear favorites” – includes Ohio State from the conference. Let’s check out where the Scarlet Knights fell in the rankings.
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Rutgers finished in Tier 14: The rebuilding projects. The Simpsons quote chosen for this tier was “Oh, why must life be so hard? Why must I fail at every attempt at masonry?” It includes five teams: Cal, fellow Big Ten school Illinois, Missouri, and Virginia Tech join Rutgers. Building a winning program is a difficult task. Schiano did it before, but the school was ina very different place and conference than his first tenure. He has used the transfer portal to his advantage and NIL deals have begun to help Rutgers through alumni sponsored groups. The Big Ten is far more challenging than the Big Eastconfines of the Big Ten might take a while. Odds are, this group will pull off a few surprises this season, but getting above .500 will require a lot of luck.
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