Coaches tell you that they can learn even more about their teams from a loss than they can from a win.
JEFF GRANIT staff Above: Tiquan Underwood fails to catch a pass from Mike Teel in Rutgers’ 24-7 loss to Fresno State on Sept. 1. Below: Rutgers linebacker Ryan D’Imperio (No. 44) and Manny Abreu (No. 51) upend Fresno State’s Kyle Duffy at the goal line. If that’s the case, then Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano probably learned quite a bit about his team in its season-opening 24- 7 loss to a good Fresno State team on Monday.
Following a scoreless first half of play in which the host Scarlet Knights failed to capitalize on its opportunities to score, the 25thranked Bulldogs finally figured out the RU defense in the second half, scoring on all four trips inside the red zone. Fresno State broke the tie on its first possession of the second half. After driving 57 yards on nine plays, red-shirt freshman Kevin Goessling split the uprights from 31 yards to provide the visitors with a 3-0 edge.
They padded that lead to 10-0 on their next possession when a 77-yard completion from quarterback Tom Brandstater to Seyi Ajirotutu set up the team’s second score. Just like that, it was 10-0 with 6:59 showing on the third-quarter clock.
Rutgers put its only points of the game on the board by putting together a strong nineplay, 81-yard drive that culminated in a 1- yard run by junior Kordell Young (26 carries for 94 yards). The score reduced the deficit to 10-7 with 11:20 remaining in regulation. The Scarlet Knights appeared to have entered the end zone two plays prior, but an official review placed the ball just outside the threshold.
While Rutgers’ score brought the capacity crowd back into the game, its enthusiasm was short-lived, as Fresno State responded with a nine-play, 77-yard drive of its own, capped by a Ryan Matthews 1-yard scoring run. With 6:46 remaining, the Bulldogs had a 17-7 lead, which they ballooned to 24-7 on their next possession with another sustained drive that was capped by a Matthews TD run.
Senior quarterback Mike Teel completed 20 of 39 passes for 263 yards to lead the aerial attack. And while he had some success, hitting his two favorite targets, junior Kenny Britt and senior Tiquan Underwood, who finished with 89 and 73 yards receiving, respectively, it was the Scarlet Knights’ inability to put points on the board that left them feeling frustrated.
“The words I would use are ‘out of sync,’ ” said Schiano. “I thought we did some good things, but we couldn’t get into a good flow. It just didn’t seem to flow freely. I think the team, collectively, needs to take over games. We have some great players, but I didn’t think we played well enough as a team.”
In an effort to jump-start the offense, Schiano tried some different things, including changing the pace of the attack.
“We jumped into the no-huddle attack in the second quarter and had some success,” he said. “Then we jumped into it again in the third quarter, but just the way the game was going we had to go back to the huddle.
Then after we went down two scores, we needed to go to a hurry-up, no-huddle offense. So we did try to change it up a few times.”
Underwood said that while Rutgers did some good things offensively, the most important thing would be for the team to learn from its shortcomings on Monday.
“All you can do is learn from a game like today, and correct the mistakes for our next game against North Carolina,” he said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board and prepare. We have to come out and execute, because you only have 12 games, and we need to take advantage of each and every game.”
Defensively, Rutgers played well, at least in the first half. In the days leading up to the game, there was a lot talk as to whether the Scarlet Knights would be able to slow what is an explosive Fresno State offensive unit. Throughout the first half, Rutgers did exceedingly well in that regard. However, in the second half, the Bulldogs found their groove, and the Rutgers defense found itself on its heels.
Schiano was quick to defend his defense, reiterating that he thinks it will turn out to be one of the strengths of the team this year.
“I don’t think the defense was tired, I just think they gave up some big plays,” Schiano said. “The defense is in great shape. At no point did I think they were gassed. They played a great game, but they gave up those three big plays. We have a stat that we keep: if we hold opponents to fewer than three plays of over 20 yards, we are very hard to beat. Today we gave up more than three plays of 20 or more yards.”
It was that inability to avoid the big play that burned RU in the end, the coach added.
“We’ve done it very well, with these same guys,” he said. “We just didn’t execute today. We had a bad day. We didn’t coach very well today. We didn’t do any of the things we needed to do in the game.”
Senior defensive end Jamaal Westerman echoed his coach’s sentiments about RU’s inability to limit the big plays.
“We had mental lapses today, which hurt us,” he said. “We all felt good, but it came down to us just not making the big plays. Our team didn’t perform to our capabilities, and that’s frustrating because we know we’re better than that.”
Senior linebacker Kevin Malast led the way for the defense with a game-high nine tackles and a quarterback hurry, while senior defensive tackle Pete Tverdov notched seven stops, including two tackles-for-loss and one sack, while contributing a pass break-up and a quarterback hurry. Senior free safety Courtney Greene finished the game with eight tackles, becoming the eighth Rutgers player in school history to top the 300-tackle mark for his career. He now has 307 tackles in his 39-game career.