Rutgers Football: What questions were answered after Week 8 vs. UCLA?

To read last week’s Answers to Questions article, use the following link:

This won’t be a 3400+ word post like last week. As much as we need it, for health reasons I just CANNOT do it. I talked a lot about coaching and culture last week and I think it’s all relevant after UCLA’s loss. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the football program right now. We’re all rooting for another bowl game, but my goal for the rest of the season is just to figure out what the hell is wrong with this team. I hope more light is shed on the team’s issues so they can be identified and hopefully resolved. With that said, let’s try to answer some questions (deep, deep sigh).

What happened on Saturday?

Rutgers lost to a one-win UCLA football team that was picking up its first Big Ten victory. We should have seen the writing on the wall. Of course, Rutgers would be the Bruins’ first conference win. It would also be her best performance of the season. They entered this game without scoring more than 17 points in a game this season. They had 21 in the first half! Total 35 points. More than double their previous season high! What the hell!!!

Well, Rutgers’ offense certainly did its job on Saturday. They scored 32 points (the most against a Power 4 team all season) with 422 total yards. Not a bad performance in any way. There was a game suspension which some fans cited as the reason for our loss (which is just crazy). I don’t blame the offense. Who can I blame?

THE DEFENSE! Real shock, right? Last year the defense ranked in the top 40 in the country in total defense. With SO many returning from last year’s defense, Saturday’s performance on the field was not only unacceptable, but embarrassing. The defense was without Aaron Lewis and Wesley Bailey (and Mo Toure for the season), but I don’t think their absence was the reason Rutgers was completely dominated on defense against UCLA.

It was clear from the first defensive series that Joe Harasymiak wanted to put pressure on the QB. He brought flashes on almost every play early in the game. What did UCLA do? Marched right down the field, QB untouched, and scored a touchdown on the first drive. OK, good. This is what happens. I never judge a team by the opening drive. They are heavily scripted and the offense completely controls the tempo. What’s wrong is that we never made adjustments and UCLA kept beating us the same way.

Remember the Virginia Tech game? Rutgers ran two or three successful plays throughout the game. Why? VT never made any adjustments. On Saturday, UCLA was able to get the ball unhindered to its tight ends in the middle of the field from the first drive to the last. If that doesn’t work, no problem! Their running backs were ignored in the passing game THE ENTIRE GAME! They were open EVERY TIME for swing passes or throws into the flat. It was stunning. Eric Bieniemy (UCLA OC and former Chiefs/Commanders OC) led CIRCLES around coach Harasymiak on Saturday. This is a UCLA offense that has been STUNK all season, but against Rutgers, Bieniemy’s offense was reminiscent of his time in KC with Patrick Mahomes.

The loss of Mo Toure to injury and Deion Jennings to the NFL exposed Harasymiak as a linebackers coach. The weakest unit on defense at the moment was the linebackers. This is on Harasymiak. Week in and week out, Moses Walker is constantly out of position in pass coverage, has poor gap integrity, and simply isn’t playing at the level you’d expect from our top-rated recruit in this 2022 class. Dariel Djabome was a bright spot on defense, but not in pass coverage. Abram Wright had a sack, which was encouraging, but other than that he hasn’t shown many flashes this season. I don’t have much criticism of Powell as he is returning from two injuries and I still believe he is playing at a high level. However, Coach Harasymiak did not adequately prepare the linebackers, which leads to massive problems on defense. Simply inexcusable, disappointing and unacceptable.

Ethan Garber’s 49 touchdown run was a microcosm of how this season is going for Rutgers on defense. After hitting Desmond Igbinosun with a hesi that sent him into the dunked position (I’m a big Desmond fan, but man was he brutal and missed a tackle), QB Ethan Garbers ran untouched for 49 yards, bringing UCLA down with a 14:7 lead. Poor tackling and terrible pursuit angles led to this touchdown, among many others throughout the game. In previous seasons under Harasymiak, the defense was exceptionally good at gang tackling. The first defender didn’t always make the tackle, but there were always one or two other players chasing him to help complete the tackle. The idea of ​​gang attack is dead and gone for this team.

After Garbers’ embarrassing TD run, Rutgers finally answered with a FG with 1:08 left in the first. UCLA then scored a TD on a pass to its running back that flew past Djabome with 22 seconds left in the first half. 21-10. Punch in the stomach.

The second half begins and Rutgers responds with 9 unanswered points (failed two-point conversion). The momentum seems to have been regained. It’s a two point game! INCORRECT! Ethan Garbers connects on a swing pass to another running back WIDE OPEN for a 67-yard TD. Moses Walker was NEVER near him and was too focused on covering a tight end. Terrible defense. Absolutely no one in secondary school to help with the tracking. Simply ridiculous. At this point the game was OVER R.

So why do we play like this?

Several reasons.

What is particularly worth emphasizing is that this team is not going into these games prepared. Offensively, teams can do whatever they want against us. UCLA is not a good football team, especially on offense. However, they went into this game with a plan and it worked without any major problems. Coach Harasymiak’s plan was to apply pressure elsewhere without Lewis and Bailey. It didn’t work. There was no backup plan. The game plan failed. That just can’t happen against a team like UCLA.

Secondly, there are far too many players in defense who are not playing well. These are former recruits that Greg Schiano identified as impact players who fit the team’s needs. Are we identifying the wrong talent? Bad talent? I’m not sure, but if you look at previous recruiting classes, the lower-ranked players far too often play high-profile three- and four-star players (of which there are few). This is good and bad at the same time. When low-ranked recruits end up becoming impact starters (Gus Zilinskas, Dariel Djabome, Hollin Pierce), it’s evidence that Rutgers truly is a “developmental” program. However, when those players outperform and far exceed the players at the top of the recruiting class (Moses Walker, Jacob Allen [Medically retired]), I just can’t help but scratch my head. Rutgers can’t rely on “diamonds in the rough” to fill out their starting lineup. We do a poor job of evaluating high school talent and need to do a better job. Luckily, this appears to be the case for the 2025 vintage (we hope!).

Additionally, we do not attract top talent through the transfer portal. I’m sure the lack of large amounts of money for transfers contributes to this problem, but we still need to find a way to attract more influential players who are ready to play as soon as they arrive. I also don’t think fans should take responsibility for fixing the problem. It is unfair and unrealistic to expect fans to open their wallets when performances like Saturday’s here at Rutgers are not uncommon but a regular occurrence. This is certainly a focus in college football and we’ll be hearing a lot more about donations at the end of this season. Am I looking forward to it? No. Is it college athletics in 2024? Yes. We need to get ready for the new era of college football immediately or we’ll see more of the same this past Saturday. I’m not trying to scare anyone, it’s just the truth.

Finally, injuries certainly had a big impact. At the beginning of this season we brought back almost all of our starters. As of Week 8, almost all of these starters have missed time (or the entire season) due to injuries. It would be a fool’s errand not to cite injuries as a reason for the poor performance. But here’s my problem…

Losing a TE who only played defense a season ago shouldn’t have a major impact on a team. I can imagine that as the season progresses and RU plays better defense than UCLA, we will quickly see how much of an impact Kenny Fletcher has had on the offense. For me that is a problem. Also, what would have happened if all of last season’s starters hadn’t returned for another season? We’re starting to find out. Everyone is ailing and no one but a handful of players are stepping in to fill the gaps.

We can have the most NIL resources in the country, but if the players aren’t performing on the field, it doesn’t matter. You don’t win football games with money. Hard work, detailed preparation, concentration and courage will get you over the goal line in football. We’ve seen all of this from Rutgers in the past and even this season. The last 3 weeks I can’t say the same.

Did Greg Schiano’s postgame comments bother you?

Yes, they have. Below is my reaction to Greg Schiano’s statement: “We’ll get there…this program will be just fine.” He wants people who have their doubts and CORRECTLY point out the problems with this program to “their Make decisions”. Well, I think I made my decision last week. I pointed out the problems. I blamed “coaching and culture” for what we experienced on Saturday. Schiano owned the loss. He said he “needs to do a better job.” His final comment stuck with me, though, because it sounds to me like we still believe Rutgers should be a competitive football team in the Big Ten. Why aren’t we there yet? What’s in the way? I find it so frustrating because Greg Schiano has explained to EXPLICITY that he wants his team to be present. He doesn’t want the past or the future to steal the present. To me his comments completely contradict that. The video shown below is from my season preview: