More on Rutgers

The big story of this game are the two freshman QBs. The Times Herald-Record's Sal Interdonato has the tale of the tape.

Rutgers QB Tom Savage is making his first road start

One week after making his first career start against a BCS opponent, true freshman quarterback Tom Savage tackles another first tomorrow: His first start on the road.
Twelve years ago, Rutgers had another true freshman quarterback make his first career road start at Army. Mike McMahon threw for 386 yards with one touchdown and one interception in a 37-35 Rutgers loss in 1997.

“We’ve had the (piped in crowd) noise out here for that reason,” Schiano said of practice this week. “Our offense is kind of built for that anyway. Tommy is a cool customer.”

The Army-Rutgers game will actually feature two of the six true freshmen who are considered starting quarterbacks for their teams. The Black Knights have plebe Trent Steelman running their offense.

Greg Schiano admires Army's option, which is cool - especially since he admired it so much he had RU looking past Pitt during RU's bye week.

With Rutgers only seeing the triple-option once this season — as opposed to twice with Navy on the schedule the two previous seasons — Schiano is a little on edge preparing for it. During its bye week three weeks ago, Rutgers was able to get a little bit of a head start in preparing for the triple-option.

I always find it interesting when coaches actually admit that they look ahead - they never admit it before a game... once in a while they will say something after a win - but it always stands out a little bit when a team loses and the coach admits peeking ahead on the schedule.

Admire Army's option all you want, but the fact is: the Black Knights still have a lot of work to do to get where they want to be.

The Army offense will have to step it up for that to happen. The Black Knights have not scored more than one offensive touchdown in four consecutive games. In the past four weeks, they are 11 of 14 inside their opponent's 20-yard line but have scored just four TDs.

Sal Interdonato does an interview with LB Josh McNary.

And finally, ESPN's Brian Bennett predicts the Big East

Friday
Rutgers 28, Army 14: The Black Knights could give their Scarlet counterparts some trouble with their triple-option offense. But Army scored only 16 points against Tulane and needed overtime to reach the same total in a win over Vanderbilt. So the Rutgers defense should be good enough to keep the points down. If Tom Savage and the Scarlet Knights offense can't break out in this game, there's trouble ahead.