Penn State Football Opponent First Look: Rutgers Scarlet Knights Edition
Penn State (8-2 overall, 5-2 Big Ten) suffered its second defeat of the season over the weekend, losing to Michigan 24-15 at home. The Nittany Lions will look to rebound with another Big Ten East battle with Rutgers (6-4 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) on Senior Day at Beaver Stadium.
Happy Valley Insider takes a first look at the Scarlet Knights heading into Saturday's clash.
Game/broadcast details:
Where: University Park, Pennsylvania
Stadium: Beaver Stadium (Official capacity of 106,572)
Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
Television: FS1 - (Broadcast team TBD)
Odds via Yahoo Sportsbook: PSU -1600 favorite (-20.5 point spread), over/under is 42.
The scuffling Scarlet Knights...
Rutgers has been one of the biggest surprises in the Big Ten this season, if not the biggest. The Scarlet Knights are out to their best 10 game start in nearly a decade at 6-4 and are already bowl eligible in a year they were picked to finish second-to-last in the Big Ten East.
Greg Schiano and company got off to a blazing start, notching three straight wins over Northwestern, Temple and Virginia Tech to kick off the 2023 campaign. That momentum was halted by a 31-7 loss in Ann Arbor and another setback against Wisconsin two weeks later with a blowout win over Wagner sandwiched between.
The Scarlet Knights then secured back-to-back wins over Michigan and Indiana to get to 6-2 and were on the cusp of being ranked in the AP Top 25 poll going into week nine. The overachievers have faced a new set of challenges since that point, however, losing two in a row to Ohio State and Iowa.
Rutgers is now 6-4 and tied for fourth in the Big Ten East, which would be its best finish in the division since the first year in the conference. The Scarlet Knights have upcoming games against the Nittany Lions and Maryland to close out the regular season.
Greg Schiano bringing Rutgers back?
For the majority of its life in the Big Ten, Rutgers has been one of the worst teams in the conference, holding a record of 39-78 since 2014, but times could be changing in New Jersey.
Scarlet Knights head coach Greg Schiano is in Piscataway for the second time in his career and is slowly building back a program that was 3-21 in the two years prior to his arrival.
During his previous stint with Rutgers, the program had four losing season before rattling off six winning seasons over the next seven years. Could a similar pattern be starting for the Scarlet Knights? Quite possibly.
Rutgers is 6-4 on the year, which marks its best win total since 2014 when the Scarlet Knights had eight, including a win in the Quick Lane Bowl. That record could improve over the next two weeks and in a to be determined bowl game next month. Rutgers is finally getting back it its winning ways, with Schiano leading the charge.
Penn State looks to continue domination...
It would be an understatement to say Penn State has had Rutgers' number in the all-time series. The Nittany Lions hold a 31-2 advantage in 34 meetings with the Scarlet Knights, which includes an active 16 game winning streak against the fellow East Coast Big Ten program. The last loss for Penn State in the series was all the way back in 1988 when Rutgers won 21-16 in Happy Valley.
Unsurprisingly, James Franklin has dominated Rutgers during the his tenure in Happy Valley, with a 9-0 record and an average margin of victory of 24.3 points per game during that time. The most recent matchup was a 55-10 Penn State win last season, which saw the Nittany Lions run for 237 yards and three scores en route to the blowout victory.
Penn State will look to extend the streak to 17 straight on Saturday afternoon.
--------------------------------------------------------------
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel