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"It's pretty disgusting." Rutgers captains react to blowout loss to No. 8 Oregon

69860by: Alec Crouthamel2 hours agoAlecCr12
NCAA Football: Oregon at Rutgers
Oct 18, 2025; Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; Oregon Ducks running back Jay Harris (22) is tackled by Rutgers Scarlet Knights defensive lineman Jordan Walker (1) during the second half at SHI Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Rutgers Football’s head coach Greg Schiano and two team captains in Athan Kaliakmanis and Jordan Walker, succinctly summarized the Scarlet Knights’ 56-10 loss to No. 8 Oregon on Saturday at SHI Stadium.

It was not an acceptable performance.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” said the senior defensive end. “I didn’t know that was a real phrase, but I’m actually feeling that.”

Even the crooked figure on the scoreboard was closer than many of the numbers in the box score, including a 750-202 advantage in total yards of offense. A much-maligned defense took the brunt of the Ducks’ potent attack, led by quarterback Dante Moore’s 339 yards of total offense and four touchdowns.

Walker’s first thoughts ventured to the play in the trenches.

“You can’t stop nobody if you don’t get sacks,” he told the media after the game. “So we gotta just get back to the books, watch film harder. I got to make sure all my guys are doing what they have to do. Just to be ready to play football, because, you could see, it didn’t look like we were ready to play football a lot of the plays.”

Oregon ran the ball 36 times for 415 yards – an 11.5 yards per carry number – and Moore was hit zero times in the backfield. Adding in the 335 yards passing – 290 by Moore and 45 by second-stringer Brock Thomas in the fourth quarter – the round 750-yard number was indicative of the game.

“Just exactly out of game felt,” Walker said on how the number felt against the defense. “I can’t even lie to you and say that I would be surprised. That’s how the number looked at the end. Again, we gotta just be better.
At the end of the day. It’s unacceptable. It’s pretty disgusting.”

On the offensive side, Rutgers managed just 202 yards offensively, only 79 through the air. Kaliakmanis finished 8-for-25 with two interceptions, while backup AJ Surace threw two incompletions in his fourth-quarter entry.

The starting quarterback also summed up his thoughts quickly.

“We got punched in the mouth,” he said. “Oregon’s a really good football team, credit to them. I think too many self-inflicted errors, and you can’t let that happen against a top-three team in the country, but it all starts with me. [As] the quarterback of the football team, I have to be better.”

Looking towards the future, Kaliakmanis hopes a performance like this – even if it “stings,” as he put it – can galvanize the team and make them better, even after four consecutive losses.

“We have to learn ultimately, this is life,” said Kaliakmanis. “Sometimes you just get knocked down. 
But how are you gonna get up, how are you going to respond to the situation. [You’re] not just going to sit there, you’re gonna get back up and give it your best effort going forward. So it’s good that we feel this way, in my opinion. I think this will make us better.”

Walker had his own way of trying to get the defense get back up off the mat.

“I brought the guys up after the game. I said, ‘You gotta be a man,'” he said. “If you don’t want to be a man, don’t come back tomorrow, because there’s nobody magical that’s gonna fix this for us.”

He also added some insight on what is keeping the unit from showing improvement week after week.

“I would say doubt is the only word,” Walker said. “We need to have more confidence in ourselves in general. Like I said, again, we have the talent. I see the guys play every day. I don’t lack any confidence in them. We just have to have confidence in ourselves. I can’t speak for somebody else, I don’t know [what’s driving that doubt]. I’ll be the one to figure it out.”

A common thread for that defense has been giving up explosive plays, and Oregon took full advantage. Four different Ducks recorded a run of at least 30 yards, while six receivers caught a pass of at least 20 yards. Walker offered his role as a captain to help remedy it.

“Again, you gotta study,” he said. “Know what your opponent’s gonna do, and you got to be ready for when that moment arises, you got to be there to make the play. So again, if you’re not there, if you’re not set, it’s pretty hard to make a play, even if you know what plays come in.”

Schiano offered his thoughts on how to fix a season-long defensive struggle.

“I have to take a hard look at everything, everyone,” he said in his postgame press conference. “And you know, 40 minutes after the game is not the time to take a look at it. I’ll have to have some tough nights and days here and figure out what we need to do.”

Schiano has only made an in-season coordinator change once, when former offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson was let go ahead of a bye week in 2022.

He gave his team a similar message after the game.

“We got to be ready to learn,” Kaliakmanis said of his coach’s postgame theme. “That’s it. That’s all you can do. You can’t just say Chop, and then, when you’re down 50, not live by it. You got to Chop. It’s the culture, it’s the program, it’s how I live my life. And just be ready to learn tomorrow.”


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