I Don't Like Rutgers' Chances

Rutgers needed a 12th game on their schedule and they found it.  The Knights will play Fresno State at home to open their season on Sept. 1.  

Now I needn't tell you, educated reader, that this will be no cake walk for the Knights.  For starters, Fresno is a damn good team and is one of the mid-major darlings heading into the season.  This was a team who finished the season at 9-4 with a BIG win over Georgia Tech in the Humanitarian Bowl.  In the second week of the season, the Bulldogs took Texas A&M to the wire before losing by two.  

Fresno's offense could be an absolute nightmare for Rutgers, who is facing the season without their two best defense men (DT Eric Foster and S Ron Girault).  The offense begins with rising senior QB Tom Brandster, who's coming off of a season in which he was efficient at worst.  Brandster didn't throw multiple interceptions in any one game and in fact closed out the season with four consecutive games without a pick (oh yeah and his yardage totals for those games: 209, 313, 205, and 285...that last one against hard charging Georgia Tech).  Pat Hill's offense revolves around the nation's 14th ranked rush offense.  Scary to think that FSU returns almost 40 of their 43.3 rush attempts per game. 

Fresno's defense kind of sucked though.  They surrendered 27.7 points per game, although much of that can be attributed to playing Hawaii, Boise State, Oregon (before Dennis Dixon had the peg leg installed), and Texas A&M.  Lucky for FSU, Rutgers' offense probably won't light up too many scoreboards without Ray Rice.  Honestly, Teel has never proven to be a very bright QB and the yardage numbers he and WRs Tiquan Underwood and Kenny Britt posted can pretty much be chalked up to teams stacking the box in vain attempts to stop Rice.  That and losing three of five starters from one of the nation's most underrated lines won't help.

RU has the next week off before playing host to North Carolina.  Take note UConn fans: UNC will be a scary ass game.  The Heels return surprising effective QB TJ Yates amonst EVERY OTHER SKILL PLAYER OF SIGNIFICANCE.  The rushing nucleus of Greg White and Anthony Little could be one of the nation's most improved this year.

Navy...no Paul Johnson, no chance.  Like Navy has real life DI athletes, please.

And then comes WVU, Cincy, UConn, and Pitt.

Pending upon whether or not Rutgers schedules Howard between Navy and WVU, they could start the season 1-6.  3-4 would be the best case scenario for the Knights.