"Another great Big Ten challenge" awaits Rutgers football against Nebraska
The Rutgers football team will head into its matchup against Nebraska with its heads held high. The Scarlet Knights (4-0, 1-0) are coming off a 21-18 victory over Washington in a nail-biting finish and will hit the road again for a date with the Cornhuskers (4-1, 1-1).
Head coach Greg Schiano and his players are not intimidated by the hostile environment they will face at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. That's because they confronted a similar atmosphere just two weeks ago.
In Rutgers' first road game of the season against Virginia Tech, Schiano believed that his team handled the away environment better than they have in recent years, but he knows there can always be improvement.
"You go into Nebraska — it is one of the loudest places on the planet," Schiano said. "We need to be able to operate in the noise. Now, that alone is a challenge, but take the cats that you're going against, that makes it really hard."
It's hard not to exude confidence when your team is just 1 of 19 undefeated FBS squads. Schiano says that statistic hasn't even crossed the Knights' minds.
"We don't even talk about it," Schiano said. "We're trying to be 1-0 in the Nebraska season. Every guy on this team knows how hard that's going to be. This is as big a challenge as we've had in a long time around here, so that's what we're locked in on."
As defensive leaders on this team, senior linebacker Tyreem Powell and senior defensive lineman Kyonte Hamilton are dialed in for the upcoming matchup against Nebraska, just as their head coach wants them to be.
"We're not even focused on the big moment," Powell said on whether the team is caught up in worrying about what lies ahead of them this weekend. "Now we (are) in the Big Ten season, so it's going to be good opponents each and every week, and (Nebraska) just happens to be another Big Ten great opponent."
Hamilton offered the same sentiment and is excited to trot out of the locker room pregame to the howling of a rambunctious opposing fan base.
"I like playing away games," Hamilton said. "I definitely feed off the energy. I'm a guy who kind of needs that when I'm playing. I like the rowdy-ness of an environment, whether it's home, whether it's away. So it definitely helps me and my game."
Rutgers will need its defense to step up against the Cornhuskers. While they've only allowed their opponents to score 16.25 points on average through four games, the Knights have had a hard time getting to the quarterback when he drops back to pass. Rutgers has totaled just four sacks on the year, which ties it for 115th across Division I schools and last in the Big Ten.
Powell and Hamilton believe that, overall, tackling needs to be improved, which can be an easy fix if the defense works together as one unit.
"As an individual in that group, I just want to make sure that everybody's rushing together," Hamilton said. "We can cause havoc in the backfield. I know that … We just got to get back to playing as ourselves."
The Knights and Nebraska will duel it out on Saturday, with kickoff scheduled for 4 p.m. The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 as well as 88.7 WRSU-FM.
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