Rutgers (4-4, 1-4) faces Minnesota (6-3, 4-2) in Piscataway on Saturday.
The Scarlet Knights host Minnesota at SHI Stadium on Saturday in their first game following their second bye week of the 2024 season. Head coach Greg Schiano’s team will look to snap a four-game losing skid against a scorching Golden Gopher team riding a four-game winning streak.Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck was the wide receivers coach in Piscataway over a decade ago, while defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman was the linebackers coach at Rutgers in the past two seasons.
I subscribe to the theory that teams will eventually return to the mean, and no matter what the Big Ten standings say, I don’t think Minnesota is nearly as good as its 6-3 record. If the Scarlet Knights win the turnover battle — and they’re due, right, to have a couple? — they’ll have a shot in the fourth quarter of this game. That’s when Athan Kaliakmanis will have his best performance at Rutgers to knock his former team down a couple notches.
In a lot of ways, Rutgers is playing a better version of the team it wanted to be. Maybe that should be expected with all the connections between the coaching staffs. Either way, this is better matchup for Rutgers than, say, Southern Cal. Minnesota won’t be as explosive, but it executes at a high level in all three phases. Nothing exemplifies that more than its turnover margin, which at +12 ranks sixth nationally.
Minnesota is the best team remaining on the Scarlet Knights’ schedule, but it might also be the most beatable opponent on the slate, too. Much like Rutgers, the Gophers are not built to win in blowouts: four of their six wins this season have come by one score, with a 48-23 obliteration of Maryland being the lone exception in Big Ten play.
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