AP Preseason Top 25

[WhiteBus]

It’s not “an excuse”. I’m not saying - we should’ve been good those years if not for a couple freak injuries. Injuries are inevitable. They are a reality that is part of the game. But our lack of servicable depth was a big part of why we sucked so badly those years. We went toe to toe with Michigan in 2021 and blew the snot out of the Temple types dropping 60+. Not the toe to toe Al and Ashokan describe about Gavin’s “good” performance on the first drive or so of a 31-7 loss. Real toe to toe. We had the ball with a chance to tie or even win on our last possession. The first team players to start 2021 were good enough to compete for a bowl but as you said - expecting all of them to stay healthy isn’t realistic. And our second teamers on the OL sucked. We lost AC’s blocking too. The guys who stepped in wouldn’t have been good enough in the old BE either. I don’t know anything about our depth this year other than the recruiting rankings are better. That doesn’t mean next up for Pierce would be able to replace him adequately though (for example).

You are only looking at one side of it. Again by the end of the season no team is 100% the same team that started the season and I don't see Maryland's depth being better than Rutgers. It is an excuse because you are talking like it never happens to our opponents and all our opponents have great depth like Ohio State. Its just not true!

 

[zappaa]

I'm not sleeping on him, but the rest of the Huskies leave a lot to desire. You're asking a lot for players who haven't played together to act as cohesive unit.

It’s about us Cubby, not them… you know that.
Washington is going to have good players.

 

[Bagarocks]

Well end of October or a little later is usually when the first CFP rankings come out.

But preseason rankings are still good for hyping early season games and what not, it doesn't mean they're accurate or will hold up over the season as some of those tweets show.

#9 vs #16 looks good on the TV screen, much better than ? vs ?.

 

[rutgersguy1]

#9 vs #16 looks good on the TV screen, much better than ? vs ?.

I get drawn into the ranked games for sure. Whether it holds over the season or not doesn't matter, it's still a good lure.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

You are only looking at one side of it. Again by the end of the season no team is 100% the same team that started the season and I don't see Maryland's depth being better than Rutgers. It is an excuse because you are talking like it never happens to our opponents and all our opponents have great depth like Ohio State. Its just not true!

No it is not an excuse because the bench depth is part of the program. I’m not saying it’s ok to have nothing. And yes - most of our opponents (even the ones who aren’t elite like Maryland) had better depth than us at that time. That was one of the biggest deficiencies with the program Greg took over that he’s been working to fix. Greg continues to say as much in his pressers. He claims this is where we’ve improved the most the past 2 years. Depth is important for injuries but also for practice. The second and third teamers from the Ash era were really terrible - not so much because of the recruiting but because development in that regime was dreadful across the board. It’s impossible to say at this point how much improved we are in this area.

 

[WhiteBus]

No it is not an excuse because the bench depth is part of the program. I’m not saying it’s ok to have nothing. And yes - most of our opponents (even the ones who aren’t elite like Maryland) had better depth than us at that time. That was one of the biggest deficiencies with the program Greg took over that he’s been working to fix. Greg continues to say as much in his pressers. He claims this is where we’ve improved the most the past 2 years. Depth is important for injuries but also for practice. The second and third teamers from the Ash era were really terrible - not so much because of the recruiting but because development in that regime was dreadful across the board. It’s impossible to say at this point how much improved we are in this area.

Jeez. Maryland has better depth than Rutgers?? Is this your Rutgers against the world crap? And after 4 years with Schiano you are using "Schiano took over a depleted program" ??? Seriously? Another excuse! You do know the Maryland HC has been there just one more then Schiano. Right?? Some of your nonsense can explain loses to Maryland but none of it explains the blowouts 3 years in a row .

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

For what it’s worth I think our chances of making the CFP are approximately 0%. But that’s because people underestimate how hard it is to hit a bunch of coin flips in a row (going 12-0 in coin flips would be ~0.024%) not because there are any impossible games on the schedule.

I get your point - noting though that Howard and Akron better not be coin flips.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Jeez. Maryland has better depth than Rutgers?? Is this your Rutgers against the world crap? And after 4 years with Schiano you are using "Schiano took over a depleted program" ??? Seriously? Another excuse! You do know the Maryland HC has been there just one more then Schiano. Right?? Some of your nonsense can explain loses to Maryland but none of it explains the blowouts 3 years in a row .

Huh? No. I’m not making any excuses. I never tried to justify any of our losses or said they were okay. Thinking back, Maryland actually was pretty banged up earlier in the season last year and went on a string of not so great losses - Illinois, NW. Injuries are part of the game for all teams. I never said otherwise. That doesn’t mean the timing of them doesn’t impact games and saying as much isn’t making excuses. I’m not sure what you are trying to say re Maryland and Schiano. Their coach inherited a much different situation. We were the laughing stock of college football. They finished 7-5 last year. We went 6-6. The difference was the head to head - on that day they were better than us. They got healthy and went toe to toe with Michigan the week before. But looking back, they didn’t have a vastly better season than us overall. And they had a star QB. He’s gone now. Geez

 

[WhiteBus]

Huh? No. I’m not making any excuses. I never tried to justify any of our losses or said they were okay. Thinking back, Maryland actually was pretty banged up earlier in the season last year and went on a string of not so great losses - Illinois, NW. Injuries are part of the game for all teams. I never said otherwise. That doesn’t mean the timing of them doesn’t impact games and saying as much isn’t making excuses. I’m not sure what you are trying to say re Maryland and Schiano. Their coach inherited a much different situation. We were the laughing stock of college football. They finished 7-5 last year. We went 6-6. The difference was the head to head - on that day they were better than us. They got healthy and went toe to toe with Michigan the week before. But looking back, they didn’t have a vastly better season than us overall. And they had a star QB. He’s gone now. Geez

That was 4 years ago when Schiano came back! You are pretending it was yesterday.
Exactly they didn't have a better season last year but certainly destroyed Rutgers.
They had a star QB and we a QB who couldn't throw. Can't blame that on Ash.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

That was 4 years ago when Schiano came back! You are pretending it was yesterday.
Exactly they didn't have a better season last year but certainly destroyed Rutgers.
They had a star QB and we a QB who couldn't throw. Can't blame that on Ash.

I’m not blaming anything on anyone. You keep saying that but I don’t know where it’s coming from? You commented that Maryland’s coach arrived only one year before Schiano - at that point, Maryland’s program wasn’t the laughing stock of college football. Their coach was able to recruit off the bat. It’s therefore apples and oranges really if your going to compare programs - but even if you wish to - again they won one more game than us. Their coach started a year ahead of us. Not earth shattering stuff here.

 

[cubuffsdoug]

It’s about us Cubby, not them… you know that.
Washington is going to have good players.

But they are still individuals trying to come together as a team. That's the weakness for them as of now. You attack and expose them. Get them into situations they haven't experienced as a group and wait for them to argue with one another.

 

[Nycrusupporter]

But they are still individuals trying to come together as a team. That's the weakness for them as of now. You attack and expose them. Get them into situations they haven't experienced as a group and wait for them to argue with one another.

If Washington can pull together a winning season with 20 new starters, their new coach should be named Coach of the year.

 

[yesrutgers01]

Others Receiving Votes: Louisville 111, Virginia Tech 77, Boise St. 47, SMU 33, Iowa St. 33, Liberty 32, Washington 23, West Virginia 17, Memphis 16, Nebraska 16, Wisconsin 15, UTSA 6, Tulane 5, Appalachian St. 4, Kentucky 3, Auburn 2, Colorado 1.

These teams are going to be tough.

wait- Coach Prime gets a vote?

 

[mdk01]

wait- Coach Prime gets a vote?

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[yesrutgers01]

Not meant as an excuse??? No it is your excuse! Injuries are inevitable in football usually at the end of the season it affects BOTH teams.

I think it may be meant more that we just didn't have the depth as much as other teams. Our 1st team to start the season healthy would stack up nicely, but a couple of key injuries and it hurts us more than some other team- I'm not sure what Maryland's schedule in the games before our game looked like but we also played some really bruising games.
That said- Maryland should never be handing it to us mult years in a row

 

[yesrutgers01]

I was thinking the same thing.

whoever threw that vote in there, should be banned by the AP from now on. I know some people love Prime but a top 25 vote is just crazy

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I think it may be meant more that we just didn't have the depth as much as other teams. Our 1st team to start the season healthy would stack up nicely, but a couple of key injuries and it hurts us more than some other team- I'm not sure what Maryland's schedule in the games before our game looked like but we also played some really bruising games.
That said- Maryland should never be handing it to us mult years in a row

I didn’t intend anything as an excuse. An excuse for what? I wasn’t trying to justify anything.

That said - in thinking more about it - I do suppose I’m fine with one considering it my excuse for Vedral being a decent year 1-2 QB grab from the portal. I stand behind my belief that Vedral was a perfectly adequate year 1 and 2 QB for Schiano 2.0 and expecting anything better based on the ground zero state of the program and the OL to support the QB position would be completely unrealistic. Vedral’s numbers in the 2020 season and his performance in 2021 prior to Sutton and O’Neal’s injuries (and then we lost AC too) support this belief. We struck out with Gavin. He didn’t work out here. But it’s not accurate to bash our QB room throughout the era beyond this. Especially with recruiting and every other position trending up. Just my take.

 

[yesrutgers01]

I didn’t intend anything as an excuse. An excuse for what? I wasn’t trying to justify anything.

That said - in thinking more about it - I do suppose I’m fine with one considering it my excuse for Vedral being a decent year 1-2 QB grab from the portal. I stand behind my belief that Vedral was a perfectly adequate year 1 and 2 QB for Schiano 2.0 and expecting anything better based on the ground zero state of the program and the OL to support the QB position would be completely unrealistic. Vedral’s numbers in the 2020 season and his performance in 2021 prior to Sutton and O’Neal’s injuries (and then we lost AC too) support this belief. We struck out with Gavin. He didn’t work out here. But it’s not accurate to bash our QB room throughout the era beyond this. Especially with recruiting and every other position trending up. Just my take.

I wasn't the one saying anything negative of what you said- that was our resident crap on everyone that doesn't agree with him guy...lol

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I wasn't the one saying anything negative of what you said- that was our resident crap on everyone that doesn't agree with him guy...lol

I know. My initial intention was a neutral point in saying that injuries could impact the win count. They could obviously help our win count too depending on who we play when - maybe some of the teams we play will be missing players (I could’ve just as easily given VTech as an example from last year - their injuries to the DL made that an easier game for us. Thats true and it’s also true that losing Sutton hurt us a lot in 2021). This was all relating to predicting our win count - what I said was basically “an excuse” for why its so unpredictable. Nothing more.

That said - I’m willing to retract my position and agree for the injury examples I provided to stand as “an excuse” for Vedral’s significantly worse performance in the latter 2/3 of 2021. The data to support this take is obvious. Then Vedral got hurt himself in 2022. In hindsight - Vedral was a pretty good pick up for us at the time - Schiano had like 2 minutes to put together a roster in 2020. He performed well in the Covid year and started off strong in 2021.

 

[rutgersguy1]

From the article:

After 2021 and ’22 produced record turnover in the rankings from start to finish — a combined 29 teams ended those seasons unranked after starting in the Top 25 — last year was one of the chalkiest of the 2000s: 17 teams that started the season ranked finished it that way, the most since 2019.

 

[WhiteBus]

I think it may be meant more that we just didn't have the depth as much as other teams. Our 1st team to start the season healthy would stack up nicely, but a couple of key injuries and it hurts us more than some other team- I'm not sure what Maryland's schedule in the games before our game looked like but we also played some really bruising games.
That said- Maryland should never be handing it to us mult years in a row

The played Michigan the week before so....
You can take the throne for being the residential crap king with that miss.
I'm not just talking about last year. 3 years in a row. Were there any Ash players still playing on the team last year? If you all think depth was an issue last year that's a Schiano issue. Stop blaming getting roasted by Maryland when Schiano took over the coaching duties in 2019.

 

[WhiteBus]

I’m not blaming anything on anyone. You keep saying that but I don’t know where it’s coming from? You commented that Maryland’s coach arrived only one year before Schiano - at that point, Maryland’s program wasn’t the laughing stock of college football. Their coach was able to recruit off the bat. It’s therefore apples and oranges really if your going to compare programs - but even if you wish to - again they won one more game than us. Their coach started a year ahead of us. Not earth shattering stuff here.

You're crying about depth because of Ash which was true in the beginning. 4 recruiting class later you are still crying about it. Schiano has completely rebuilt an entire new roster. Why do you keep crying about the 2019 team as the reason for getting blown out by Maryland in 2024??

 

[rutgersguy1]

 

[WhiteBus]

That's just an average of 37 yards per game by each of the 4. I think they will be fine. What a click bate stat.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

You're crying about depth because of Ash which was true in the beginning. 4 recruiting class later you are still crying about it. Schiano has completely rebuilt an entire new roster. Why do you keep crying about the 2019 team as the reason for getting blown out by Maryland in 2024??

I’m not crying about anything. I gave an example of the impact that injuries can have on the trajectory of a season (it can be in either direction) to illustrate the point that it’s so difficult to predict how the season will go. Thats true even if we were to accurately project how good each team will be based on what they have today (which of course we can’t do either). I chose to focus on the 2021 team and the impact of Sutton’s injury mostly because I had just posted on another thread that I think Pierce is one of the most important players to stay healthy. If you prefer it - swap that example with VTech. If we get lucky and draw Nebraska in a week where they are missing 2-3 key guys on the DL, their leading rusher, etc. well that’d suddenly improve our chances.

 

[rutgersguy1]

That's just an average of 37 yards per game by each of the 4. I think they will be fine. What a click bate stat.

I think the biggest issue would be with Texas. They’ve had some big bruiser backs last couple years and taking away their top two backs on the depth chart sounds like a pretty good hit. Don’t know if their NIL has got them even more capable RBs to fill the gap.

 

[WhiteBus]

I’m not crying about anything. I gave an example of the impact that injuries can have on the trajectory of a season (it can be in either direction) to illustrate the point that it’s so difficult to predict how the season will go. Thats true even if we were to accurately project how good each team will be based on what they have today (which of course we can’t do either). I chose to focus on the 2021 team and the impact of Sutton’s injury mostly because I had just posted on another thread that I think Pierce is one of the most important players to stay healthy. If you prefer it - swap that example with VTech. If we get lucky and draw Nebraska in a week where they are missing 2-3 key guys on the DL, their leading rusher, etc. well that’d suddenly improve our chances.

Stop. You complained about Schiano walking into a ship show which is true in 2019, not in 2024. Simply Maryland out recruited RU in the last 4 years especially at the QB position. Gavin was a total bust. Plus the rest of their offense was pretty good. Except for Kyle you can't say that about RU. And my initial point is no one believes Rutgers will make the playoffs but you chimed in with they have a punchers chance. They don't until they beat Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin and that is the next level before making the playoffs. There is a long way to go to talk about playoffs. Rutgers is definitely trending in the right direction but let's not forget they got to 6-2 and shipped the bed. We should do better this year but no there is no punchers chance. Foolish talk, wishful thoughts but people need to come back to earth. This is same bravado that most of us, including me, had going into the 2009 season. It was over by the first quarter of the first game. I left before halftime. Reality should be your friend.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Stop. You complained about Schiano walking into a ship show which is true in 2019, not in 2024. Simply Maryland out recruited RU in the last 4 years especially at the QB position. Gavin was a total bust. Plus the rest of their offense was pretty good. Except for Kyle you can't say that about RU. And my initial point is no one believes Rutgers will make the playoffs but you chimed in with they have a punchers chance. They don't until they beat Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin and that is the next level before making the playoffs. There is a long way to go to talk about playoffs. Rutgers is definitely trending in the right direction but let's not forget they got to 6-2 and shipped the bed. We should do better this year but no there is no punchers chance. Foolish talk, wishful thoughts but people need to come back to earth. This is same bravado that most of us, including me, had going into the 2009 season. It was over by the first quarter of the first game. I left before halftime. Reality should be your friend.

No - I didn’t. That wasn’t the intent of any of my posts. You said something about losing 3 straight to Maryland. I was only pointing out that we’ve dealt with late season injuries which made it so our team was worse at the time of year when we played Maryland in the past few years than we were earlier in the same season, say at the time we played VTech - for example. If you swapped the timing of the VTech and Maryland games the outcomes likely would’ve been reversed. It’s not only about who the opponent is and how good their starting rosters look today. Timing matters because injuries are part of the game. On both sides. That’s all I was driving at. How healthy we and our opponents are at the time we play them will matter for all involved.

 

[WhiteBus]

No - I didn’t. That wasn’t the intent of any of my posts. You said something about losing 3 straight to Maryland. I was only pointing out that we’ve dealt with late season injuries which made it so our team was worse at the time of year when we played Maryland in the past few years than we were earlier in the same season, say at the time we played VTech - for example. If you swapped the timing of the VTech and Maryland games the outcomes likely would’ve been reversed. It’s not only about who the opponent is and how good their starting rosters look today. Timing matters because injuries are part of the game. On both sides. That’s all I was driving at. How healthy we and our opponents are at the time we play them will matter for all involved.

So you admit it's an excuse. Gotcha 🙄
Go read your own posts. Stop back tracking.

 

[robjknight]

I lack faith in a true freshman at QB, and that's what NU is starting. There is a saying, "The closer you are to the ball, the longer it takes to develop." That goes for the OL, DL, and QB.
Rutgers over NU
USC at home over RU
The Virginia Tech game depends on our QB play. If we have competent play out of that position, we win. The Hokies stacked the box against us last year and couldn't stop the run. If we can spread them out and pass enough to keep them honest, we can run all over them. They added some depth at DT and a dwarf MLB from Middle Tennessee. I still see it as a problem for Va. Tech until further notice.

It seems like Rhule's rule for himself is 3 years and then move on.
VT- Drones is a good QB and we have to focus on stopping him in the run game.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

So you admit it's an excuse. Gotcha 🙄
Go read your own posts. Stop back tracking.

You consider it “an excuse” to state that injuries impact game outcomes / chances for each team to win? That’s what I said. I gave examples. Vegas odds adjust for injuries real time. Saying they impact probabilities is not making an excuse in my book. I’m still not exactly sure what you think it’s an excuse for. I never said it justifies losing, or not winning more. Or anything like that.

 

[WhiteBus]

You consider it “an excuse” to state that injuries impact game outcomes / chances for each team to win? That’s what I said. I gave examples. Vegas odds adjust for injuries real time. Saying they impact probabilities is not making an excuse in my book. I’m still not exactly sure what you think it’s an excuse for. I never said it justifies losing, or not winning more. Or anything like that.

I don't need to respond to you anymore. I've seen your love for Gavin on another thread and the excuses you make for him🙄 I didn't know your college football IQ was that low! Have a nice delusional life! Peace Out.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I don't need to respond to you anymore. I've seen your love for Gavin on another thread and the excuses you make for him🙄 I didn't know your college football IQ was that low! Have a nice delusional life! Peace Out.

My love for Gavin? Can you read? I’ve been the one arguing with Plum’s All Star assessment.