After falling to Wisconsin 31-10 in Madison, Rutgers football will return home to play Nebraska this weekend as a part of their military appreciation game. This game comes at the end of a long week for Scarlet Knights football, as it was announced earlier in the week that head coach Greg Schiano will be back for another year and that star wide receiver KJ Duff will be out for the season due to surgery on a high ankle injury.
Rutgers will be coming into this game on a three-game losing streak, falling
to Northwestern and Wisconsin in blowout fashion and being defeated by a struggling Michigan team. Similar to the Knights, the Cornhuskers are on a long losing streak of their own, falling to Indiana, Oregon, Washington and Illinois in consecutive weeks. However, unlike Rutgers, three of these losses came by a touchdown or less.
The Cornhuskers’ starting quarterback, Anthony Colandrea, has thrown for 2,100 yards and 16 touchdowns so far this season. However, after starting the year off hot, his play has taken a serious step down in this losing streak for the Huskers, as over the last four games he has thrown three touchdowns and five interceptions. Colandrea is also a good runner, rushing for an average of 4.5 yards per carry as well as four total touchdowns this season.
His best receiving option so far this season has been Kwazi Gilmer, who has 46 catches for 603 yards and seven touchdowns so far this season.
Nebraska has a decent stable of running backs to rely on, primarily Jamal Rule and Mekhi Nelson. So far this season, Rule has carried the ball 88 times for 632 yards and five touchdowns, while Nelson has 78 carries for 348 yards and five touchdowns.
Defensively, Nebraska is led in tackles by linebacker Owen Chambliss, while lineman Jahsear Whittington leads the Cornhuskers’ pass rush with 4.5 sacks.
As stated before, Nebraska has a decent running game that will be matched up against a porous Rutgers defense that is particularly bad against the run. To make matters worse, the Knights will be extremely handicapped on offense with Duff out, as well as OL Kwabena Asamoah and starting quarterback Dylan Lonergan. Even backup quarterback AJ Surace is listed as questionable.
This game has the potential to unfold in a similar fashion to the last one for Rutgers, as both Nebraska and Wisconsin are very similar teams to one another. Questionable passing game, good running game, really good defense that can get pressure. However, it was Badger quarterback Ryan Hopkins who hit the Knights’ defense for 241 yards and three touchdowns last week so it will be interesting to see what the Cornhuskers will do offensively following that performance.
Rutgers vs. Nebraska will kick off at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 inside SHI Stadium. Live coverage will be available on the Big Ten Network.
