Rutgers Scouting

[Brad]

• Sophomore running back Jawan Jamison (Starke, Fla.) rushed for 110 yards on just 10 carries to record his second consecutive 100-yard game to start the season.Dating back to last year, Jamison has three straight 100-yard games and has gone over the century mark in four of the last five games.

Jamison’s last three games

27 carries, 131 yards vs. Iowa State (12/30/11)

18 carries, 112 yards (TD) at Tulane (9/1/12)

10 carries, 110 yards vs. Howard (9/8/12)

• Jamison is the first Rutgers running back since Ray Rice to post three straight 100-yard games. Rice ripped off seven consecutive 100-yard games to finish the 2007 season.

• Jamison converted 3rd and 34 with a career-long rush of 64 yards.

• Jamison posted the fifth 100-yard game of his career. He is tied for 10th in school history with the five career 100-yard games.

• Rutgers is 2-0 in 2012 and 43-16 since 2000 when rushing for 150 yards or more in a game.

http://scarletknight...71#.UEzWRo2PW0I

[Brad]

Rutgers/Howard game recap

At the very minimum, impatience is starting to grow with the Rutgers offense following two consecutive subpar outings against weak opponents. Is the culprit quarterback Gary Nova, receivers who drop too many catchable balls, or new coaches Dave Brock (offensive coordinator) and Rob Spence (quarterbacks)? One argument in favor of the latter is that Rutgers cannot exactly fire its players, and Gary Nova looks significantly different than he did in 2012. Another is that the scripted drives at the beginning of games seem to be struggling significantly. It's either that, or the team is coming in with nerves and settling down. While the offense wasn't a world beater afterwards, that first quarter was just a mess. That won't exactly fly with USF, or even John L. Smith-ized Arkansas. For one thing, the offense needs one of Quron Pratt or Tim Wright to emerge as a dependable possession WR (we already know that Brandon Coleman is either going to be awesome or terrible on any given play), and a healthy Paul Carrezola would help a lot too.

It's not 2009 at least (good defense, bad offense) for a couple reasons, chiefly of which being the renewed success of the offensive line and running game. Yes, it was just Tulane (who were hammered by Tulsa yesterday mind you) and Howard, but Rutgers has not had a back like Jawan Jamison in some time. It's incredible how far much he has improved even with the markedly better OL play. It's too early to compare Jamison to Ray Rice despite the stylistic similarities, but at this point, a Montel Harris or Benard Pierce (in terms of workhouse backs who seemingly come out of nowhere) aren't huge stretches. Savon Huggins isn't playing bad mind you, and his power style is a nice complement to Jamison's, but Jamison has vision and knows when to cut. He just bounces off defenders with his low center of gravity. Rutgers has finally found its new workhorse back. And no, I'm not talking about Ben Martin giving the De'Antwan Williams memorial garbage time performance when Rutgers let up early in the 4th quarter.

Beyond the offensive struggles (the defense was awesome, as per usual), what kept this one from turning into a blowout besides Kyle Flood lacking Greg Schiano's affinity for style points were a number of self-induced errors. Rutgers just couldn't quit it with dumb penalties yesterday. How do you botch two extra points? More concerning still were the injuries. Carrezola, KR Jeremy Deering, and DT Al Page were already out. Center Betim Bujari and guard Andre Civil were replaced by Matt McBride and Taj Alexander respectively, which was fine against Howard, but Bujari especially would be a big loss with how he's playing if he misses any significant time. I missed it during the game, but Savon Huggins and Marcus Thompson are now out too. Huggins badly hurts the RB depth with Paul James already hurting, and no Thompson is frankly a disaster with Mike Larrow being suspended and Marvin Booker hurt. Ka'Lial Glaud and Jamil Merrell are good starters, but after that, there's Myles Jackson (fair enough), and Max Issaka, who missed all of training camp this year. Not good!

http://www.onthebanks.com/2012/9/9/3303912/rutgers-howard-game-recap

[Paisa el Toro]

Our team has historically struggled a bit containing Rutgers RB's. Hey, is that Ray Rice running for another 500 yards on USF?

Does anyone have any information on Elkino Watson? We'll need all the help we can get on that interior defensive line. They can't get carved up like a Thanksgiving Turkey again and hope to be competitive against Rutgers.

[Ghost]

crap, I hate playing teams with strong RBs. A Ray Rice comparison is not welcome either. This Thursday is going to be such a tough game.

[BullFan98]

Jamison will be a major issue for our defense. We cannot stop the run up the middle (i.e. see Nevada game).

[blitz8ru]

Jamison will be a major issue for our defense. We cannot stop the run up the middle (i.e. see Nevada game).

Wait a minute... I thought your DL was your strength with your back 7 being the weakness.... ???

[BullFan98]

Not so much "back 7 being the weakness", my concern was depth with our backs. The bright side is that the D line got it right when it counted at the end of the game.

[Ghost]

Our D Line needs to work on crashing in. Maybe move the LBs up a little bit. We cannot let this guy get into a groove on the ground.

[blitz8ru]

How's your OL?

Our DL is significantly improved from last year... We're now able to get some push while only rushing 4... LBs and DBs are the same if not a little better than last year as well...

[The Great 8]

Err...guys, our DL can crash in just fine. The game plan was to force Nevada's RB to beat us instead of their more dynamic QB. Thus, we ran contain with the DEs pretty often.

It won't be such a problem on Thursday. Giddins and Mims will be crashing in too, as well as any blitzers. Their OL should have its hands full.