Rutgers Football suffered its first loss of the season last Friday in its Blackout game, falling to Iowa 38-28. Iowa was a critical matchup for the Scarlet Knights’ postseason aspirations, as their loss drastically
shifted their bowl predictions.
Many people around the college football world, including myself, thought that Rutgers would finally get one over on Iowa. That turned out not to be the case as the Hawkeyes handed the Knights another loss. With that opportunity for a win now off the table, Rutgers has three games that are looking more and more like must win games, especially when considering the quality of opponents they have to play in the other five games.
Minnesota, Maryland, and Purdue have been elevated to near must-win, if not must win, status after Rutgers’ loss to Iowa. The Knights, realistically, at least have to win two out of three of these games and pull off one upset somewhere else to qualify for a bowl game. That task is easier said than done, especially when considering Rutgers-Minnesota was a toss-up last season, and the fact that Maryland and Purdue are better than they were last year.
At one time, I would have believed that Rutgers-Washington was a toss-up game that the Knights had a good chance of winning. Rutgers beat them last year and looked like they were going to be better this year. However, now that a few games have been played, my confidence has receded. Rutgers’ defense has looked awful all around, but especially when defending the run. Washington’s running back Jonah Coleman looks like an emerging star in the Big Ten, and their quarterback room looks better than last year. From what I have seen so far, it’s hard to see Rutgers slowing them down enough for the offense to pile up points on them.
The rest of the games come against ranked teams, three of which are ranked in the top 10. Barring a miracle, these games will be losses for Rutgers, as they will be mismatched on both sides of the ball.
So that leaves the Knights with the three games listed above and very little margin for error. To make things more difficult, two out of three of those games are on the road.
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