Cats drill Rutgers, 42-14, to become bowl-eligible

I wouldn’t say they drilled Rutgers. Keep in mind they were on their third string QB. I had to leave for the second half and saw the final score looked good, but when I rewatched I was disappointed to see in the last half of the 3rd quarter was by far the worst defense we’ve played, giving up like 20 yards per carry. The game should’ve been completely over after halftime but suddenly going into 4th quarter it’s one TD from a one score game and all our drives since second quarter had stalled out.

I know everyone will say “game was never in doubt” but it does NOT bode well for the upcoming stretch (especially away games where we’ve played worse) unless we get both RFitz and Flakes back ASAP.

Fanaticat98 said:

I wouldn’t say they drilled Rutgers. Keep in mind they were on their third string QB. I had to leave for the second half and saw the final score looked good, but when I rewatched I was disappointed to see in the last half of the 3rd quarter was by far the worst defense we’ve played, giving up like 20 yards per carry. The game should’ve been completely over after halftime but suddenly going into 4th quarter it’s one TD from a one score game and all our drives since second quarter had stalled out.

I know everyone will say “game was never in doubt” but it does NOT bode well for the upcoming stretch (especially away games where we’ve played worse) unless we get both RFitz and Flakes back ASAP.

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Not sure I'd put it that harshly. The game wasn't particularly close at any point. Our win probability dipped to 98.7% when it was 28-14.

The Michigan State game was in far more doubt than this Rutgers game for example. The offense was terrific down the stretch after Rutgers got that 8 point drive. We answered immediately with a 10 play TD and Chiles made terrific decisions after that INT. That shows character.

I hate to say it like this, but you'd rather see Chiles throw his first INT in a game like this and come back with total control/composure rather than in the next 3 games where INTs could lose those games.

But yes, I agree with your criticisms, especially on the rush defense, which was disastrous today to put it mildly, 250 yards given up by the starters, that's a problem. Braun/McGarigle know that the next 3 teams on our schedule are going to look at that 3rd quarter by Rutgers and try to mimic it. That's on the coaches to figure out...


If Rutgers is on its 3rd string QB, everyone in the stadium and watching on TV knows they're going to run it and they were still gashing us left and right. So that is a huge problem. But we have to take it in the context of a 42-14 win where we know we have a good team overall.

Our run defense is pathetic. Nonetheless our defense only gave up 1 TD and 14 points total. Holding Duff to three catches for 33 yards is a great performance and I think McGarigle concentrated on pass defense giving up a little bit of run support (at least that is what I hoped happened). We have to really play better when we go to Oregon.

We need our top guys back but the big ten is wide open and I see every game as realistically winnable with the longest odds with OSU

JustGary said:

Our run defense is pathetic. Nonetheless our defense only gave up 1 TD and 14 points total. Holding Duff to three catches for 33 yards is a great performance and I think McGarigle concentrated on pass defense giving up a little bit of run support (at least that is what I hoped happened). We have to really play better when we go to Oregon.

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Agree with this, we were doubling Duff at times (wisely), and clearly we shut him down.

Of course, having a QB unable to get him the ball helped us too.

Fanaticat98 said:

I wouldn’t say they drilled Rutgers. Keep in mind they were on their third string QB. I had to leave for the second half and saw the final score looked good, but when I rewatched I was disappointed to see in the last half of the 3rd quarter was by far the worst defense we’ve played, giving up like 20 yards per carry. The game should’ve been completely over after halftime but suddenly going into 4th quarter it’s one TD from a one score game and all our drives since second quarter had stalled out.

I know everyone will say “game was never in doubt” but it does NOT bode well for the upcoming stretch (especially away games where we’ve played worse) unless we get both RFitz and Flakes back ASAP.

Click to expand...

Have you seen what happened around the conference today? We had issues, but we cruised.

freewillie07 said:

Have you seen what happened around the conference today? We had issues, but we cruised.

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I said the same thing last week (and the same thing was true last week).

And you can expand that: look around the whole country. Look at all the ranked teams getting upset over the past 2 weeks, and the Big Ten has had a bunch of upsets as well.

The sport is getting slammed by parity this year. Everyone's paying players in the Power 4. The talent is far better spread out than ever before because of NIL and the transfer portal.

I might need to take back my post on the other thread saying I think we will have 2 more losses. As long as we have no major injuries we could have one more(OSU), but we might be able to take them. Iowa wasn't so great today.

We win big. Recurrentl. Why do people afterwards talk about how bad we are and we’re doomed in future games?