Quick Lane Bowl: Rutgers First Look

Despite a roller coaster season, Carolina finds themselves bowl bound after the 2014 regular season campaign. With a 6-6 record, the Tar Heels stumbled to the lower tier of the ACC Bowl Game pecking order and will face a familiar foe in the form of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. This will be the 5th meeting of these two squads since the start of the Butch Davis administration and Larry Fedora’s first against the Knights at the UNC helm.

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights, fresh off an 7-5 season, their first in the B1G Conference, come riding into Detroit on a much different journey than the Tar Heels. For starters, Rutgers roared out of the gates in 2014, starting the year off 5-1 (as opposed to UNC’s 2-4 start). However, the Scarlet Knights sputtered down the stretch, losing the last 4 of their last 6 games (UNC won 4 of 6 during the same stretch). UNC and Rutgers had no common opponents in 2014 so being able to watch their kinks against a familiar foe isn’t on the table. This Rutgers team has a pair of decent wins (at Washington State, at Maryland) but has gotten run out of the stadium 4 times of their own (at Ohio State, at Nebraska, vs Wisconsin and at Michigan State). Rutgers did post their largest come from behind victory against Maryland in the season finally, winning 41-38 after trailing 35-10 to the Terps. Make no mistake, Rutgers, has found ways to win.

To brief on the Scarlet Knights offense you must know the main guy behind it: former Maryland HC Ralph Friedgen. “The Fridge” is known for his ability to build offenses with limited talent. He did it for years at Maryland and he’s had that very task in his first year at Rutgers. Rutgers, like Maryland is never short of athletes, but there’s always been a void in the football IQ and awareness across both rosters. In year one, Friedgen transformed perennial arm punter (read: Bad QB) Gary Nova into a  capable game manager who’s thrown his least amount of INTs since his freshman year (2011). Friedgen led Nova toward registering his best QB rating in his four years in Piscataway. Rutgers is very lucky to have this offensive mind on their staff. Nova’s been fortunate to throw to an elite receiver Leonte Carroo, a big play wideout who gets the targets and has recorded 100 yard efforts in half of the Knights games this season. At running back its a mixed bag for the Knights with Desmon Peoples, Paul James, Robert Martin and Justin Goodwin all splitting carries. Carolina will need to make Rutgers one dimensional and force them to pound the rock.

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To reiterate how similar this Rutgers team is to UNC, we should take a gander at their defense. The Scarlet Knight defense has been abused by big plays for the last couple of years and 2014 was as bad as it gets. The 4-3 look did not do a great job of keeping offenses in front of them, in that half of Rutgers opponents scored 35 or more point against them (UNC takes the lead there with giving up that figure 8x). Like UNC, it’s not like the talent isn’t there either — Rutgers’ defense has its share of 3 and 4 star talent on their defense. The Knights have a difficult time getting off the field (sound familiar) and with the offensive inconsistency the Knights have shown, this defense has been very vulnerable towards giving up the big play. It could very well be a high scoring affair in Detroit.

I do look forward to breaking down this familiar foe for the first time in four seasons. With Butch’s ties to the former staff and the Savon Huggins recruiting drama, this always seemed to be an unexpected, yet exciting team to face. It’s hard not to forget Gio Bernard saving the game 3 years ago with a pair of scores after UNC struggled to stop current Bengals teammate of Bernard’s Mohammed Sanu that September afternoon in Chapel Hill. I’m hoping that both squads bring their best effort and hopefully a few fans to what could be a high scoring affair between familiar foes.

Time for this Carolina squad to take advantage of these extra practices and set the tone for 2015.

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