Quick, Easy Victory Over Howard Would Be Ideal Situation For Rutgers

Added by Gregg Snyder on September 5, 2012.

Rutgers and Head Coach Kyle Flood will look to begin the season 2-0 when they host Howard on Saturday.

Since 2006, Rutgers has gone 6-0 against teams from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). In those games, the Knights have outscored their opponents, 278-14. Rutgers hosts yet another MEAC oppenent this Saturday when the Howard Bison come to Piscataway in Rutgers home opener at High Point Solutions Stadium.

Head coach Kyle Flood insists his team is not over-looking Howard. He also says his game plan is the same and the team is approaching this game as it does any other.

While they may not admit it openly, anyone around the Rutgers program would surely love a quick start that leads to an easy victory on Saturday. The most important aspect of this weeks game will be coming out of it healthy, and victorious. A showdown on the road in South Florida is looming and Rutgers needs to be healthy for a early season game which could have a season long impact.

“If the game presents itself like that then you’d have the opportunity to do it, and certainly it could help you in a short week,” Flood said regarding taking players out early. “But we don’t think in those terms as a coaching staff. We are going to go out there the first play and fire all the bullets in the gun, so to speak, and see how well we can play.”

The team with the most talent should win a game, however that’s not always the case. Just ask a Pittsburgh team that fell to Youngstown State last week. If you are not ready and focused, you can be knocked off. Beacuse of that, Rutgers will be playing all of their big time players. Nobody will get a complete day off, unless of course they are unable to play because of injury.

Rutgers will easily have more talent on their roster than that of Howard. It will come down to focus and execution. If Rutgers can execute their game plan, they should be able to get out to a sizeable lead and put the game away, allowing Flood to pull a lot of his players early, at least by the end of the third quarter, and prepare for South Florida.

The Scarlet Knights would like to build on and improve their play from last weeks’ 24-12 win over Tulane. You would like to see Jawan Jamison and Savon Huggins continue their success on the ground as well as see starting quarterback Gary Nova and the receivers really show some rhythm and cohesiveness.  The Knights overall played well last week, but at times did not look sharp. This is the type of game you want your team to come out, look sharp, play sharp, and take care of business.

When you let teams like Howard and Youngstown State stay in the game, they gain confidence while you start to press. That leads to mistakes and upsets. Howard is coming off a come from behind victory last week, so their confidence is already high. Rutgers needs to come out ready to play, ready to execute and take an early lead and command this game from the opening kick. Not only will that allow the starters to come out early, it will give some players a little deeper on the depth chart some game experience and playing time that may come in handy later in the season.

With a short week leading up to Thursday night’s game with South Florida, this is the ideal situation for Rutgers.