Purdue, Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana most years, Maryland and some others were some historically weak B1G teams and Rutgers is in that bin. The "big game" people still talk about is 20 years ago. The big and consistently successful teams came from schools that emphasize football A LOT. Rutgers isn't a football university like the others. Maybe the new admins would like to make it one but that's not a small job or a short post.
Schiano does a lot of things right but offense isn't one of them. Its beyond contention that RU's offensive philosophy is a detriment. Monsters in between the 20s and elves in red zone every year. Other teams even make note of it in their scouting
".. the extra parts are
baffling to the both of us -- is that Rutgers gets stopped completely dead in the redzone. They can look amazing between the 20s but as soon as they cross the opponent’s 20 yardline (actually I can pinpoint where the per-play effectiveness and a-EPA begins its collapse at the 31), everything falls apart. This includes things which are totally maddening to observe, like o-line blocking grades, which makes no sense (it’s the
defense in the trenches that’s supposed to get fatigued on long drives, not the offense), and Rutgers’ preternatural 2nd & long passing game which goes from a +7 percentage point overperformance compared to 1st & 10 (itself kind of weird) outside the redzone to a mind-bogglingly terrible 16% 2nd & long success rate inside the redzone.
Numerically, the offense goes from a 57.6% per-play efficiency between the 20s to a 44.1% efficiency inside the 20. A small part of that is a falloff in rushing efficiency, by about four points -- fairly natural, as defenses compress -- while the major part is that passing efficiency collapses an
astonishing 21 percentage points, from 57.8% outside to 36.8% inside.
As such, Rutgers has only converted 16 of its 27 meaningful redzone trips in FBS play to touchdowns, a 59.3% rate. For context, global efficiency is usually coincidental enough for F+ advanced statistics that having a 70% redzone touchdown conversion rate goes hand-in-hand with a top-30 ranking. That’s basically true this year (it’s actually top 33, the service academies are hyperefficient outliers), but there are four teams who are F+ darlings outside the redzone and so are highly rated offenses in that system, but are under 61% in redzone efficiency and so my model is very skeptical of them finishing the season strong: Illinois, Kansas, Texas Tech … and Rutgers."
Duck Tape: Film Analysis of Rutgers Football 2025
A preview of Oregon’s week 8 opponent in Piscataway
A preview of Oregon’s week 8 opponent in Piscataway
www.addictedtoquack.com
WASHINGTON 2025
"After Duff’s initial touchdown catch on the first possession, Rutgers returned to the red zone five more times and scored just six points combined, the two aforementioned Jai Patel field goals"
Scarlet Knights Collapse Yet Again In The Second Half, Fall To 3-3 With #3 Oregon Up Next
www.onthebanks.com
ILLINOIS
Rutgers’ underperforming offense struggles once again vs. Illinois: ‘We always leave something out there’
This red zone problems goes back to pre iPhone days - not even Ray Rice could help
2007 UConn
"The individual offensive numbers look like something from a video game. Rutgers will likely finish this season with two 1,000-yard receivers for the first time in school history, with a 3,000-yard passer and, most likely, with a 1,600-yard rusher. Yet there were the Knights, settling for five field goal tries in six red zone trips against Connecticut on Saturday (making four) while managing just one touchdown."
Ledger: Pale in the red zone
EVERY YEAR ITS THE SAME THING (UConn 2007 to Oregon 2025) and its not mostly on the players. Greg CANT DO red zone no matter the OC or players. He needs an intervention - rub his nose in it like a puppy that keeps peeing in the house. The stats are out there for anyone who wants them. There have been ADs who called for new schemes from coaches
