Rutgers football had chances.
So many chances.
The Scarlet Knights just couldn’t capitalize on any of them.
Instead of celebrating what would’ve been a signature Big Ten victory, Greg Schiano’s team instead boarded an airplane bound for New Jersey lamenting those missed opportunities in a 14-7 loss to Nebraska on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
“We just didn’t play well enough to win this game,” coach Greg Schiano told reporters afterwards.
The key word there is “this.”
No, Rutgers didn’t play well enough to win “this” game. “This” game was right there for the Scarlet Knights to grab hold of, but they couldn’t do it.
It was a disappointing showing in many areas.
Rutgers needs to flush “this” game quickly.
The Scarlet Knights’ undefeated start to the season is over. They had a chance to move to 5-0 but instead came home 4-1.
But the good news for Rutgers?
There are still plenty of chances ahead, plenty of winnable games, starting Saturday at home against Wisconsin.
The Badgers blew out Purdue this weekend in Madison, but that result may say more about the Boilermakers’ ineptitude than anything else.
Wisconsin already lost starting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to a season-ending injury and on Thursday leading rusher Chez Mellusi announced he was stepping away from the team to “focus on his health.”
The Badgers in their previous two games got blown out by Alabama and then lost by 17 to USC in Los Angeles.
Luke Fickell’s team still has talent and size in the trenches, but it’s vulnerable.
That’s an opportunity Rutgers needs to take advantage of.
Another chance will come the following week when UCLA makes the cross-country trip to play the Scarlet Knights at SHI Stadium – the Bruins are 1-4, with their only win coming by three points in their season opener against Hawaii.
So despite the panic in some segments of the Rutgers fanbase, the sky is not falling.
The Scarlet Knights still have a very legitimate chance to be 6-1 when they make their own trip out to Los Angeles to play USC on Oct. 25.
But that will only happen if this Nebraska performance ends up truly being an anomaly.
Rutgers can’t get inside its opponent’s territory nine times and come away with only seven points.
Rutgers can’t block a punt, get to the 2-yard line and fail to get into the end zone on six attempts (it certainly looked like Kyle Monangai scored one of those attempts, but the officials ruled him down inside the 1).
Rutgers can’t drop a guaranteed touchdown pass inside the 5-yard line without a defender in sight.
Simply put, Rutgers can’t fail to capitalize on those opportunities.
And the Scarlet Knights’ inability to do so was surprising because capitalizing on their opponent’s miscues played a major role in winning their first four games.
It was also surprising that Rutgers moved away from the run as much as it did – Monangai had eight carries for 64 yards in the first quarter, then just 11 carries for 14 yards the rest of the game. Rutgers as a team ran the ball 32 times, the lowest of the season.
Nebraska’s defense played a role in that, adjusting to limit Monangai over the final three quarters when he did get the ball.
Still, a lot about this game was surprising and at several times downright confounding.
And yet it was one game.
One disappointing game.
The Scarlet Knights have to move on from “this” game. They need to look more like the mentally tough team that did what they needed to do to beat Virginia Tech and Washington.
They have winnable games remaining on the schedule. They have to take advantage.
Whatever kept it from taking advantage of chances on Saturday?
Rutgers has to leave that in Nebraska.
