It was a Good Year

[NotInRHouse]

6 wins isn’t bad. Going 0-4 in the final 4 weeks is, though. That’s what I’m most mad about.

I don’t know who thinks we SHOULD HAVE beaten Iowa. I think everyone should agree we COULD HAVE beaten them…and the fact we didn’t even show up for the game should be maddening

Almost like the hardest part of the schedule was in November- Maryland aside. Maryland was the no show. I don't expect to beat top 15 teams on the road.

The fact we COULD have beaten anyone is a testament to GS and again, shows the idiocy of the people crying about him.

 

[brgRC90]

Almost like the hardest part of the schedule was in November- Maryland aside. Maryland was the no show. I don't expect to beat top 15 teams on the road.

The fact we COULD have beaten anyone is a testament to GS and again, shows the idiocy of the people crying about him.

Could have beaten anyone? Where do you get this? Not getting blown out and leading at halftime by one point are not at all the same as being able to beat anyone. The end results of all the games were ultimately not very close. You grew so used to 7 TD blowouts that you think losing by only 2 or 3 scores is close and means the team, which struggled to score TDs in the red zone, could've won. It doesn't.

 

[mdh2003]

Isn‘t 6-6, or .500, the definition of average? Some good, some bad. Like, beginning - good, end - bad. But, on the whole, the entire year was neither. I guess you can say average is good, but I wouldn’t it. I also wouldn‘t say average was bad either.

No doubt we’ve made good PROGRESS this year, compared to last. Maybe even better than good. And maybe that is the most important part. We are on an upward trajectory.

Now, win the bowl game, and finish with an ABOVE average record, I’m on the Good Year train…

 

[BROTHERSKINNY]

We're seeing steady progress. The line play on both sides of the ball improved dramatically. We still need some better players at the skills positions but the team improved greatly this year. There is not one game we lost that I thought we couldn't win it with a few better plays or turnovers. We are in a bowl again, which was my hope for this year. We have some good players coming in and we need to get the fan base engaged in supporting the team. Winning will help with that greatly.

 

[mikemarc1]

Almost like the hardest part of the schedule was in November- Maryland aside. Maryland was the no show. I don't expect to beat top 15 teams on the road.

The fact we COULD have beaten anyone is a testament to GS and again, shows the idiocy of the people crying about him.

The schedule so hard we were in 3 of the 4 games at halftime…

Again, I’m upset we didn’t finish any of those games that we had the chance to win and potentially be a program changer.

Yes..I’m glad we can finally say we could beat anyone. Credit to Schiano. Will we beat anyone is the question and where I’m doubtful with Greg.

 

[LotusAggressor]

Wimsatt is going to work hard in the offseason to get better. People miss the impact he has running the ball, and it’s huge, and makes up for his less than stellar passing.

Wimsatt is a good running QB, but he needs better offensive design to have a real impact.

 

[LeapinLou]

I came into the season thinking Sam Brown would be our MVP. Right position, wrong player.

Wimsatt had his ups and downs. Contrary to some opinions on this board, I think Schiano plays the guy that gives us the best chance to win. If the QB is underserving the team, that's on the coach for not bringing in a better player. But I was among those pleading to get Winsatt on this roster. So I can't turn around now and say Schiano should have recruited better. That would be revisionist.

I'm going to chalk up this defensive performance against Maryland to the team being spent. With rest, I expect to see a major bounce back performance in the bowl game. Overall, it was an excellent year defensively and hopefully we won't get fleeced by the transfer portal because it would be really nice to have this defense back next year. I understand Melton is likely going to the NFL and Jennings graduates. We need to hold onto the rest of them.

 

[rurichdog]

Wimsatt is a good running QB, but he needs better offensive design to have a real impact.

Something like Clemson used to run, Sprint Out option. That cuts the field in half, allows the QB to be a run threat and pass threat simultaneously, requires 1 maybe 2 defensive reads, and he'd be plenty more productive. I saw inklings of it on Saturday, with Gavin rolling right and hitting an uncovered TE. Going to need a lot more of that.

 

[Shelby65]

Can’t have it both ways. Can’t say sticking to the running game and wearing down VT,MSU and Indiana in the end was controlling the game, and then ignore 4 teams doing the exact same to us claiming ‘we could have won’.

So, by that logic you must also say there are multiple games we could have lost.

 

[Shelby65]

I came into the season thinking Sam Brown would be our MVP. Right position, wrong player.

Wimsatt had his ups and downs. Contrary to some opinions on this board, I think Schiano plays the guy that gives us the best chance to win. If the QB is underserving the team, that's on the coach for not bringing in a better player. But I was among those pleading to get Winsatt on this roster. So I can't turn around now and say Schiano should have recruited better. That would be revisionist.

I'm going to chalk up this defensive performance against Maryland to the team being spent. With rest, I expect to see a major bounce back performance in the bowl game. Overall, it was an excellent year defensively and hopefully we won't get fleeced by the transfer portal because it would be really nice to have this defense back next year. I understand Melton is likely going to the NFL and Jennings graduates. We need to hold onto the rest of them.

Lou…honest question re: best chance to win….let’s simplify. Do you think Monangai running into the line twice followed either by a designed QB draw or 3 yard pass to the flat and punting gives the team a better chance to win than occasionally taking deep shots to keep the D honest and maybe getting a few pass interference calls gives the team a better chance to win ?

No one thinks GS doesn’t want to win, but it’s obvious the game plan is to run clock, eliminate turnovers and hope for big plays by the defense. Against good teams that just doesn’t work. Our philosophy doesn’t ever put enough points on the scoreboard.

 

[Randal7]

In all of our losses, we never had a chance

Correct.

 

[LeapinLou]

Lou…honest question re: best chance to win….let’s simplify. Do you think Monangai running into the line twice followed either by a designed QB draw or 3 yard pass to the flat and punting gives the team a better chance to win than occasionally taking deep shots to keep the D honest and maybe getting a few pass interference calls gives the team a better chance to win ?

No one thinks GS doesn’t want to win, but it’s obvious the game plan is to run clock, eliminate turnovers and hope for big plays by the defense. Against good teams that just doesn’t work. Our philosophy doesn’t ever put enough points on the scoreboard.

I'm not sure how my comments about the season lead to this line of questioning. But I will say that I think Kirk Ciarocca understands the probability of success in running certain plays better than I do. So I don't question play calling all that often. I do know that Gleason lost the game against Nebraska last year because he had Simon passing in situations where running the ball and punting (playing field position) would have produced a better chance for a win.

 

[Shelby65]

I'm not sure how my comments about the season lead to this line of questioning. But I will say that I think Kirk Ciarocca understands the probability of success in running certain plays better than I do. So I don't question play calling all that often. I do know that Gleason lost the game against Nebraska last year because he had Simon passing in situations where running the ball and punting (playing field position) would have produced a better chance for a win.

My question was about your ‘Schiano playing the guy who gives us the best chance to win’ premise. I suggest GW does indeed give us the best chance to win under GS’s strict run game, run clock philosophy. But i also suggest the philosophy is a certain failure in the modern game against good teams. The primary goal of no turnovers and no clock stoppages with incomplete passes doesn’t move the chains or put points on the board. Points need to matter most, but they don’t here.

Not employing offense to outscore the other team is a fatal flaw.

 

[rutgersal]

My question was about your ‘Schiano playing the guy who gives us the best chance to win’ premise. I suggest GW does indeed give us the best chance to win under GS’s strict run game, run clock philosophy. But i also suggest the philosophy is a certain failure in the modern game against good teams. The primary goal of no turnovers and no clock stoppages with incomplete passes doesn’t move the chains or put points on the board. Points need to matter most, but they don’t here.

Not employing offense to outscore the other team is a fatal flaw.

Shelby65:

Maybe you need to consider that we’re not ready to beat good teams yet. In hindsight, it appears the goal was to minimize the point differential, rather than win the games outright. This will allow us to point to improvement and recruit better players, like 4* Korey Duff. We need many more like him to be competitive. Developing 2* and 3* players only takes you so far.

Once we have the horses, then we can worry about beating better teams. For now, the WR and TE rooms contain a paucity of talent. The Lines are still being built, as are the LB Corp and DBs and QBs.

But that is in the process of being rectified thanks to a talented group of incoming freshmen.

 

[Shelby65]

Holy shit, Shelby agrees with Fieldhouse Al. A first. The objective clearly was not to try to win against good teams, but rather to shorten the game to give the impression of improvement.

Shelby does not agree with the philosophy at all, especially since the receiver talent we lack will not come to a place where passing and scoring aren’t primary objectives.

Lou…I have no issue with KC’s play calls either, since he’s limited by philosophy.

 

[RUScrew85]

Once we got to 6 Wins, the outcome of the rest of the games didn’t matter, though of course, we wanted to win them. We’re bowling. That’s the only thing that matters. We set out to win at least 6 games and won 6 games, a 50% increase over the previous year. The seasonal objective has been achieved, and the program will work to move forward.

In all of our losses, we never had a chance, which points to a significant talent and support gap with opposing programs.

In yesterday’s game, Taulia Tagovailoa completed 24 of 31 passes, a 77.4% Completion Rate, for 361 yards. Their leading receiver, Tai Felton, caught 5 balls for 140 receiving yards. That’s roughly 30% of our leading receivers production for the SEASON.

Kyle Monangai rushed for 118 yards, and ended up with 1,099 yards for the season. He is my Offensive MVP. Tyreem Powell was our leading tackler till he got injured, and he is my Defensive MVP. Jai Patel is my Special Teams MVP, notching 14 field goals on 17 attempts.
Gavin Wimsatt threw for 1,651 passing yards and rushed for 488 rushing yards, putting his total productivity at well over 2K total yards. He also added 9 passing TDs and 9 rushing TDs, for a total of 18 TDS. This was the best season for a Rutgers QB since 2014. He was a key factor in 5 of our 6 victories, especially our comeback victory over MSU, where he was clutch.

Defense played lights out for most of the year, till fatigue crept in, in November. The offense, especially our offensive line, played especially well in our victories.

Schiano will get his extension based on Hobbs comments on the podcast, and we will continue to work on the Fieldhouse Designs, per Hobbs.

We will see the impact of our results in our ‘25 Class and I can’t wait, because this class has a number of impact receivers, and we could really use a few of them. With the results from our ‘23, ‘24, and ‘25 Classes, our WR talent issues will finally be fixed.

Now we look forward to the @AreYouNUTS pregame bowl party. Can’t wait!

It was an OK year.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Could have beaten anyone? Where do you get this? Not getting blown out and leading at halftime by one point are not at all the same as being able to beat anyone. The end results of all the games were ultimately not very close. You grew so used to 7 TD blowouts that you think losing by only 2 or 3 scores is close and means the team, which struggled to score TDs in the red zone, could've won. It doesn't.

No actually it means progress. Not that that matters when your glass is filled with whine;

 

[NotInRHouse]

The schedule so hard we were in 3 of the 4 games at halftime…

Again, I’m upset we didn’t finish any of those games that we had the chance to win and potentially be a program changer.

Yes..I’m glad we can finally say we could beat anyone. Credit to Schiano. Will we beat anyone is the question and where I’m doubtful with Greg.

The proper measuring stick is moving in the direction of getting those wins.

Again, one team outside the top 4 had one win against someone within. It's not like other B1G teams are rolling into Ann Arbor and Columbus and walking out with wins.

 

[brgRC90]

No actually it means progress. Not that that matters when your glass is filled with whine;

Now you're changing your words. Could we have beaten Michigan? Wisconsin? Ohio State? Maryland?

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

 

[NotInRHouse]

Now you're changing your words. Could we have beaten Michigan? Wisconsin? Ohio State? Maryland?

Generally I would say if you're beating a team at half, yes. The irony is for all the strum und drang on the offense, the one game we were never really in was versus Maryland because the defense didn't show in the 1Q.

 

[Shelby65]

Generally I would say if you're beating a team at half, yes. The irony is for all the strum und drang on the offense, the one game we were never really in was versus Maryland because the defense didn't show in the 1Q.

Since you’re attempting to show off here Herr Wolfgang, it’s “sturm” unless you’ve coined a new expression relating to guitars.

You are welcome.