'This was a clunker': Rutgers football falls flat in 'unacceptable' Wisconsin walloping
The Rutgers football team collapsed on offense and defense in a 42-7 thrashing at the hands of Wisconsin at SHI Stadium on Busch campus Saturday. The Scarlet Knights (4-2, 1-2) have now dropped two straight games after starting the season 4-0 while scoring just 14 points in both matchups combined.
“The whole day, we couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time,” head coach Greg Schiano said after the game.
Throughout the afternoon, Rutgers was plagued by misfired passes, bad drops, missed tackles and a spotty secondary.
Coming into the game, the Knights were without two of their starting stalwarts on defense - senior defensive back Robert Longerbeam and senior linebacker Tyreem Powell. It’s hard to replace these two cogs of the defense, and that was put on full display.
In the first half, Wisconsin was able to put together two scoring drives, both in the first quarter.
Approximately 6 minutes into the game, the Badgers struck first after quarterback Braedyn Locke was able to find Will Pauling for a 16-yard touchdown pass. On that drive, Wisconsin just needed eight plays and 89 yards in three minutes and eight seconds of game time.
Two offensive drives later, Wisconsin scored again on a 2-yard rushing touchdown. It was 4th and 1, but Rutgers could not prevent the Badgers from finding paydirt.
The offense wasn’t much better. It took until around midway through the second quarter for the Knights to muster a first down, going 0 for 5 on third down conversions to start the game and leading to a punt each time.
On Rutgers’ sixth drive, it was able to put itself at the Wisconsin 10-yard line. On 4th and 1, though, senior running back Kyle Monangai was stuffed for no gain, and the Knights turned the ball over on downs. Monangai would have just 22 yards on 11 carries in the opening two quarters.
In its last drive of the first half, junior placekicker Jai Patel trotted out to attempt a field goal from 37 yards out with less than a minute to go. Almost as if it was a symbol of Rutgers' overall first half performance, the snap was bobbled which gave Wisconsin time to block Patel’s kick. The Knights were shut out in the first half for the second straight week.
The defense did manage two takeaways in the first half — an interception by senior defensive back Shaquan Loyal and a fumble recovery by junior defensive back Bo Mascoe — but the offense could not take advantage.
It was much of the same ugliness to start the third quarter. After another Rutgers punt on another flat offensive drive, the Badgers needed just four plays and 89 yards to extend their lead to 21-0. Wisconsin was aided by a 33-yard run and a 47-yard pass completion on that scoring drive.
How would the Knights respond? With a tipped ball interception off a Kaliakmanis pass that the Badgers capitalized on for their fourth score of the game. At the 4:45 mark of the third quarter, fans took to the exits and the student section, which was full of scarlet-shirted fans in the first quarter, was ripe with empty seats.
Wisconsin would end up scoring 14 more points en route to a 35-point victory on the road. Rutgers just could not find any momentum on both sides of the ball, and continuously hurt itself with mistakes at almost every turn. And it seemed to start following the opening kickoff.
"I wish I could say it was a slow start,” Schiano said. “It was a slow start, a slow middle and a slow end.”
Kaliakmanis finished the game with 103 passing yards while completing an abysmal 12 of 32 passes.
“The performance, especially from me today, is not just acceptable,” Kaliakmanis said. “It is surprising. This isn’t the standard that we play at here at Rutgers.”
On the other side, Wisconsin was able to flourish on offense, especially on the ground, as it rushed to the tune of 309 yards. Tawee Walker led the charge with 198 yards and three touchdowns, including a 55-yard dagger in the fourth quarter.
The Knights will look to bounce back from this poor performance when they take on UCLA in their Homecoming game next Saturday.
“I can’t ignore that we weren’t ready to play (today),” Schiano said. “My mission in the next 48 hours is to figure that out, change what needs to be changed, don’t overreact. Some days you throw a clunker. This was a clunker.”
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