Ohio State football: 5 reasons the Buckeyes will beat Rutgers
By Alec Hartman
3. Rutgers’ track record in the Big Ten is not good.
Typically, history isn’t a major factor in who will win a match up but it has some significance here. Rutgers has only won one game against a Big Ten opponent since 2015. This includes 58-0 loss to the Bucks last season. Rutgers has not come within 35 points of the Bucks in all three of their meetings.
Rutgers joined the Big Ten conference in 2014. The Scarlet Knights had previously been in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) in 2013 and then the Big East conference for a greater length of time before that. Rutgers has actually been a fairly decent team aside from the last two seasons.
The Scarlet Knights won the Big East conference with a 9-4 record in 2012 under head coach Kyle Flood. In their debut season in the Big Ten in 2014, Rutgers finished with a 8-5 record and earned a spot in a bowl game where they beat North Carolina.
Out of the few conference opponents that Rutgers managed to defeat in their Big Ten debut, Michigan was one of them. Rutgers defeated Michigan 26-24 two weeks before losing to the Bucks by almost 40 points.
One thing that Rutgers does have is a former Urban Meyer assistant. Former Buckeyes’ defense/special teams coach Chris Ash has been the Rutgers head coach since last season. Ash went 3-13 in his first season at the helm and went without a win in the Big Ten. However, Rutgers did come within seven points in three of the games including only losing by two to Minnesota. Ash was a member of the Buckeyes’ coaching staff during their College Football Playoff championship run in 2014.
Current Buckeyes defensive coordinator Greg Schiano has been a member of the Rutgers coaching regime. He was the Scarlet Knights’ head coach for a lengthy period of time spanning from 2001-2011. Schiano eventually left after having accrued a 68-67 record with the team. He went on to become the head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for one season. After that, Schiano ended up joining Urban Meyer as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for the Bucks.
Rutgers has gotten progressively worse since joining the Big Ten. Their eight win debut season was short lived after that total was cut in half to four in the following season and then just two last season. This season, the Scarlet Knights are off to a 1-3 start including a loss at home to Eastern Michigan. Things haven’t been looking up for the new guys in town and their bounce back doesn’t start this weekend against the Bucks.