Really bad news.

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Boy was i wrong. In fact, it may have been the spark we needed. Not only did we get a chance to see Benjamin, but Raymond got much needed reps. And AK had a big day.
When Kyle comes back, i think we should continue to give Benjamin reps.


And i don’t know what happened with the pass rush, but we finally had one. All in all, a great day for Rutgers!

On this day in 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore carrier and the largest ship in the Great Lakes, was lost with all 29 hands on board during a storm on Lake Superior.

The exact mechanism of the Fitz's sinking is still unknown. What is known is that both the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Arthur M. Anderson, another ore carrier in the vicinity, reported winds in excess of gale force and significant wave heights in excess of 30 feet. The Fitz was rolling heavily and additionally reported an improperly sealed loading hatch which was causing the vessel to take on water.

It was only a year later that Gordon Lightfoot, while recording his Summertime Dream album, penned the lyrics to his most commercially successful song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Most fans of the late Gord know that on recording day he played the song's basic chord progression for his band, which was followed by an improvisational run-through. That "second take" is what appears on the album.

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What is it and how long could it keep him out?

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Nice solid win over a good team, as we outgained them 349-297 and the season is back on track to some extent with 6 wins and a bowl now looking likely and 7 wins a decent possibility (I predicted 7-5, so I'd be happy with hitting that mark). A big part of the win was certainly being more healthy than we've been for weeks on defense, where we've just been bad the last 3 games, against WI, UCLA and USC. We finally had what appeared to be healthy versions of Longerbeam, Dixon, Lewis, and Powell who have all been either out or playing limited minutes for the most part in those games. And it showed, as we were good against the run and pretty good against the pass, against a pretty damn good MN offense, plus we turned it on in the 4Q when we absolutely had to with a couple of huge gamechanging plays in the fumble and the safety.

On offense, we continued to play pretty well - not amazing, but pretty well, with 349 total yards of balanced offense, with 240 passing and 109 rushing. Thought AK's passing was very good, apart from the bad INT (although the WR bears some responsibility for that one, not coming back to the ball and letting the DB step in front of him) and his stats would've been significantly better than his 17-33 for 240 if we hadn't had several drops (although our WRs did make some nice contested long catches too). And the rushing sounds much better when it only includes the RB's as Raymond/Benjamin were a combined 33 for 139 (4.2 ypc, which is respectable) - and while we obviously missed Kyle, the OL came up huge in the running game and probably moreso in giving AK time to pass.

Also, whenever a team wins, the coaching staff gets some credit and I thought we really came to play and didn't get down at all when we didn't score on that first possession when the ref swallowed his flag on an obvious DPI, and that was followed by a nice MN TD drive, where we missed some tackles. We came right back and drove for a TD and if we hadn't had that bad INT we likely would've been up more than 14-9. We also had very good game plans on offense and defense and we got decent play from our special teams (and finally ran back a punt!). I wonder if the fire Schiano crowd will recognize the excellent job Greg and his staff did in preparing the team and making adjustments within the game to help us win. And we'll never know, but it kills me to think about how much better our record might be if we hadn't been decimated by injuries.

Also, what a gorgeous day and while attendance was underwhelming (understandable after 4 straight losses), the crowd was decently loud at key moments.

Richie - it's really f*uckin annoying lol.

Do you have any control over it?

Torn but have to say Athan. Nice to have many options

Torn between Athan and Hamilton. Will go Athan. 3 Tds should have better completion stats and yards. Killer drops in the second half did not help him

Didnt see a thread on him yet, SIAP. What a difference him coming back was. Defense this game vs UCLA was night and day. Him and Powell are leaders and the defense was ready for everything. UCLA game, our guys were waving their arms looking at each other as the snap went off, this game total locked in.

He also made a huge swat on a late Minny drive on a deep bomb. Played lights out like 0 YAC on his receivers today. Just gutty and to me was the difference. I think we’re 5-0 or 5-1 when he’s fully healthy.

we do throw the ball - we take lots of shots. sure we are predominately run but it depends on the matchups. against a far superior team we want to run and control the clock. against a team where we have advantages on the outside we throw the ball. receivers were healthy today too - strong was hurt earlier in the year. we are not the most boring offense ever - KC and GS know what they are doing but there are reasons sometimes we are predictably boring. jimmy's and joes matter.

With a stat line like this deserves a big shout out: 13 total tackles 11 of which were solo, and 3 of which were TFLs. Plus 1 sack. Good job young man.

Hearing Kyle and Bailey are out has made me depressed.

Somebody give me some hope.

our RB room is DEEP.

Why did the team end up on the Minnesota sideline when it was all over?

I feel like he's been flying under the radar. He didn't accumulate many tackles today but had a big sack. More importantly, he's played both DE positions and DT the last few weeks. I believe he currently leads the team in sacks with 3.5 now.

At one point today, Minnesota had their RT and TE double teaming him. Kind of crazy that they would need two guys to block a DT forced to play DE with all the injuries.

So he deserves some love for stepping up and getting it done.

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Truly an amazing effort

What changes where made during the bye week ?


This Minnesota team can score they hung 40 on Maryland

First time I've ever started a thread about a block (especially since I played WR/DB growing up, so never paid much attention to blocking lol), but Raymond's pick-up of a well disguised corner blitz on that 2nd TD driver for RU in the 2Q was immense, as the CB would've had a clear line at AK from the blind side and would've had a real chance at a strip sack/fumble. That block enabled AK to complete a very nice pass to Miller for a key 3rd down conversion. I know Kyle is known for his blocking and Raymond did a great job there.

Was looking through D1 results on Flo. And saw Billy Janzer is 184 for The Citadel....

Through seven weeks the offense is worse than last year. The schedule is easier though still not easy. Realistically, what will the staff try and do differently the rest of the way?

I’m trying to think of what’s next and I can’t figure it out. Our challenge is more heavy boxes than last year, defenses playing more condensed than last year, and not stressing the contain defender without frequent read option. It’s allowing defenses to set up shop in man coverage crowding the middle of the field.

How that impacts us as a problem is all our passing success usually comes from the slot, and most of our run game success came from getting a double team and holding the weak side defender to allow space for KM to work. My first thoughts on what we can try. But I don’t know if it’ll work. Anyone have any thoughts conceptually (aside from execute better and sure things up; blocking/drops/accuracy/etc.)?

1. Wide passing game. We need to force defenses to spread out. The staff has little confidence in Athan to throw outside the hashes. Let’s get our bigger bodies more targets on these throws and if we have to do so to the boundary (short side of the field). I think Strongs injury may actually hurt more than I originally thought. But as such I would increase snaps for our bigger bodied receivers for a larger catch radius and safer targets for Athan. More Strong/Duff/Black.

2. More pre snap motion to dictate to defense. It seems most of our presnap motion is off play action. We’ve had to abandon play action as we’ve gotten behind early in games. Presnap motion can move defenders out of the middle of the field and help get guys open vs the press man we are facing, and do it before our Oline breaks down. Let’s implement more in dropback passing game to help Athan and the receivers out.

I am likely to do a post mortem on most RU games, time permitting. This one may be shorter than most (which some will laugh at given my tendency for lengthy posts).

So ... Here goes, with a high level summary:

1) To begin with, this game comes with a major caveat. Yes, Wagner went to the NCAA last year after winning the NEC tourney. And, yes, Wagner is favored, along with Central Connecticut St, as pre-season co-champions. But ... Last season, Wagner was 14-15 going into the NEC tourney (a losing record) ... and lost its top 3 players from last year. This year's starting line-up was made up of entirely of last season's next 5 top players (#4-8). I say all this because, though I thought RU played very good defense (other than its defensive rebounding), and was relatively efficient offensively (50% FG, though just 30% 3-point FG), and made Wagner look really bad for most of the game, I wonder ... Wagner did not LOOK like a pre-season co-champion favorite, even from a bad conference. Of course, this game, the 1st game, against a low level conference team, and without Bailey, does not mean much (unless RU really struggled) ... but maybe it means even less, if Wagner is actually NOT a good team.

2) RU had a real rebounding problem: both weak defensive rebounding (especially in the 2nd half), AND offensive rebounding. I do not know the answer. Does the coaching staff have an answer? Maybe the only answer is for the team to achieve in other areas to offset this weakness ... like scoring more, and more efficiently. Still ... a team with a strong scoring and rebounding frontcourt could cause real damage to RTU that cannot be offset, unless Pikiell and staff can figure out how to help the team be a better rebounding team.

3) RU won easily, even with flaws ... always a good sign. Here are the flaws RU overcame to win going away (by 23, but with 1 minute left it was a 29 point margin): a) RU was missing its #1 or #2 player; b) Very poor defensive rebounding, allowing WAY too many offensive rebounds, especially in the 2nd half; c) Very poor offensive rebounding - only 4, 2 of which were team rebounds; d) Poor FT shooting - though Harper was 1-6 FT, which would seem like an extreme anomaly, unlikely to repeat itself. Surely there were other team flaws, but those come to mind. Yet, it is a good sign, IMO, when a team can win easily without playing its "A" game, and missing its expected top scorer.. I am sure RU will struggle in some games, not even playing as well as they did vs Wagner ... AND ... I am sure RU will ALSO play better in other games, even against better teams.

Players (mostly quick comments):

Harper: Oddly enough, in my opinion, it is a GREAT sign that everyone (announcers, commentators post game, fans etc.) was "wowed" with his control, his ability to get to the rim at will, his ability to finish at the rim (make his at-rim shots) through contact, his improved defense (vs the St. John's game), his vision and passing ... all in a game in which I felt Harper did not even have his "A" game. Yes, he was good, and yes he of course keyed the game and was RU's best player in the game (as he often will). Still, I felt he forced things a little more than he should (more so than in the St. John's exhibition game),leading to his 4 TO ... and he was just 1-6 FT. Well, maybe I am nitpicking ... but I just felt while watching the game that we are going to see Harper play many games better ... which, IS very exciting.

Ogbole: Very poor game. Not just the fouls ... his few minutes were not because of fouls, but because he played poorly. His biggest issue in THIS game was a complete lack of good defensive footwork, and a lack of sound defensive fundamentals. That does not mean he will play like this in all games, but in THIS game he was very poor. His major defensive problem in THIS game was he played entirely behind Wagner's post player, and let him establish position way too close to the hoop, and never tried to reposition the offensive player by either his strength, partial fronting, or by moving his feet. Ogbole played much better defense against a better post player versus St. Johns - but was notably poor vs Wagner. He earned only getting 5 minutes of time.

Sommerville: Terrific start to his career. The offensive moves were obviously highly skilled, with excellent footwork and excellent body control. He was solid with defensive rebounding, as well. And his defense, even against a lesser player than he faced in the exhibition vs St. Johns, was vastly improved, with solid fundamentals and excellent defensive footwork. And what a passer, eh? Sommerville will struggle, surely, in some games. But he also showed some real potential. Maybe ... RU will get more games than not from Sommerville like this ... and maybe a few games of better than what he did in this game from Ogbole? One can hope, eh?

Williams: Excellent, solid game. Even with the shoulder, he was controlled, played terrific defense, occasionally explosive offensively, and an important part of breaking down the Wagner defense, as well as pushing the pace in transition.

Derkack: He is going to be an important part of the rotation. His athleticism is evident, his defense is very strong, he can rebound a bit ... his offense is still a work in progress, especially against better teams. he will make some frustrating decisions and moves (especially in the half-court offense), and some electrifying ones (especially on defense and in transition). But he will play.

Davis: I thought he was excellent vs Wagner. His on-ball and recovery defense were simply outstanding - as I expect it will be in most games. And his decision-making was really good offensively this game. I did not see any forced shots. When he drove into the lane, he looked to pass out to open teammates. He kept the ball moving, passing - it did not stick to his hands ... including giving up several open shots to pass to better shooters on his team for better shots. Yes, he was 0-3 from 3-point range. But all were wide open, unforced, shots (I think 2 or all 3 were from Harper, costing Harper a couple of assists). He and Derkack will lose minutes when Bailey is available, but Davis was excellent, IMO ... oh yeah, 5 assists, 0 turnovers and 3-4 FT, plus a few rebounds.

Hayes and Martini: Did what they were brought in to do: Hit their open 3's. Hayes also was at least OK on defense (and certainly showed great willingness on D), and made several really good cuts to the basket. Martini his his 1st 3's and was solid on defense (not great but solid).

Acuff: I though he played a solid offensive floor game (though he did not hit many shots), though still not quite in full GAME shape ... my son felt the ball stuck to his hands too much in the half court, unlike with Davis or Williams, thus reducing the flow of RU's offense when he had the ball. Regardless, his defense was ... poor. Many times in his just 14 minutes he was unable to cover his man, fooled, beaten or out of position ... this would be a problem. Richie O thinks Acuff is RU's 6th man. Pre-season and injury I thought Acuff would likely be RU's offensive spark off the bench. My son thinks Acuff should be RU's TENTH (10th) man, behind the normal starters - Bailey, Harper, Williams, Martini and the Center - as well as Derkack, Hayes and Davis and the 2nd center. We shall; see. My early read currently is that Hayes should get minutes over Acuff, if that is the choice ... and that Davis and Derkack do things needed off the bench that Acuff cannot do (play-making and defense).

On Acuff, vs let's say Williams (not that the comparison is between those 2): Williams is the FAR better player - and during his full college career has ALWAYS been the better prospect and better player, last season's scoring explosion by Acuff notwithstanding. Derkack may also be better - other than 3-point FG% ... and Davis fills a totally different role.

Grant/Dortch: Glad Grant got a couple of minutes - and hope he does so in the next couple of game also. But he is clearly thw 11th man, and a prime candidate for a redshirt ... no judgment on his 2 missed shots ... but he did alos get 2 nice rebounds. Dortch si almost certainly going to be redshirted - and hopefully will return next year (rather than transfer) with another year of learning, physical strength improvement, etc.