PISCATAWAY, N.J. - A third quarter safety by junior defensive tackle Blair Bines (Shirley, N.Y.) proved to be the difference, as Rutgers defeated Connecticut 12-10 in a BIG EAST battle Saturday afternoon at Rutgers Stadium. The Scarlet Knights held UConn to a season-low 117 rushing yards, including just 11 yards in the second half, to earn the win before a 14th-straight sellout crowd.
"I thought (the defense) played very well," said head coach Greg Schiano. "That's a good offensive football team and a great running back. We have been playing hard the whole season, they've been productive the last few weeks and it's good to see it's starting to click."
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| Kenny Britt had nine receptions for 107 yards. It marked the ninth career 100-yard performance for the junior, extending his Rutgers career record for 100-yard games. (Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto) |
Second half field position was instrumental in the victory. The Rutgers defense was able to pin UConn deep in its own territory after the midpoint thanks to the play of punter
Teddy Dellaganna (Templeton, Calif.). The redshirt sophomore had a career day, dropping four punts inside the 20-yard line, booting two longer than 50 yards and registering two touchbacks. The performances of Dellaganna and the Rutgers coverage units led to the Huskies having an average field position of its own 10-yard line after halftime.
Offensively, the Scarlet Knights were paced by wideout Kenny Britt (Bayonne, N.J.), who had nine receptions for 107 yards. It marked the ninth career 100-yard performance for the junior, extending his Rutgers career record for 100-yard games.
Aided by positive field position, Connecticut got on the scoreboard first. The Huskies blocked a punt, providing the visitors possession at the RU 48. UConn travelled downfield to the two-yard line but were thwarted deep in the red zone. On a third down play, senior linebacker Kevin Malast (Manchester, N.J.) stopped the ball carrier at the line of scrimmage to force a field goal. The 19-yard attempt was good and the Huskies held a 3-0 advantage with 7:16 remaining in the opening stanza.
The Scarlet Knights knotted the score at triples on the ensuing possession. Propelled by a 33-yard Britt reception and a 14-yard Tiquan Underwood (Lawrenceville, N.J.) grab, RU moved 67 yards on 13 plays. San San Te (Conover, N.C.) split the uprights from 18 yards with 0:43 showing on the first quarter clock.
Rutgers created and benefitted from its own good field position after intermission. The Scarlet Knights throttled UConn at the one-yard line to start the second half on a terrific open-field tackle by redshirt freshman Joe Martinek (Hopatcong, N.J.) and forced and immediate three-and-out. The ensuing punt provided RU a first down at visitor 37. Five plays later, after Mike Teel (Oakland, N.J.) passes of 14 and 16 yards, Rutgers entered the end zone for the contest's initial touchdown. Kordell Young (West Deptford, N.J.) did the honors on a six yard carry to enable a 10-3 lead with 10:24 remaining in the third quarter.
The Scarlet Knights nearly notched a safety with just under five minutes to play in the third quarter. The officials took a closer look, but, after a review, the play stood. The situation would replay itself a few minutes later. With RU dominating field position, courtesy of solid special teams play, UConn had a first down at its own 2-yard line. That's when Bines stepped up and through, stopping Donald Brown in the end zone for a safety to give RU a 12-3 advantage with 1:38 on the third stanza clock.
After being held out of the end zone for the first 51:26 of the game, Connecticut hit pay dirt with 8:33 to go. The Huskies drove 85 yards on six plays, the sixth being a 47-yard touchdown pass from Zach Fraser to Kashif Moore, to reduce their deficit to 12-10.
The Huskies had an opportunity to take a late lead. With the Scarlet faithful on the edges of their seats, UConn kicker Tony Ciaravino took the field for a 42-yard field goal attempt with 1:09 remaining. The kick hit the right upright and was no good. The Scarlet Knights assumed possession. A pair of Young runs provided a first down and RU was able to run out the clock.
Rutgers played a disciplined game to earn the victory. The Scarlet Knights were flagged for just one penalty and did not commit a turnover.
The Scarlet Knights returns to the gridiron next Saturday for a BIG EAST Conference match-up versus Pittsburgh in the Steel City. Kickoff for the contest, which will be televised live on the Internet by ESPN360, will start at 3:30 p.m.
POSTGAME NOTES
Team Notes
Rutgers moved to 7-1 all-time in Homecoming games under head coach Greg Schiano with Rutgers' 12-10 victory Saturday afternoon over Connecticut. The Scarlet Knights have won three straight homecoming games and are 2-0 all-time vs. BIG EAST teams under Schiano on Homecoming.
Connecticut's best field position to start a season half drive was their own 24-yard line. The Huskies had five drives that started inside the 15-yard line in the second half, including the second half opening drive at the one.
The Rutgers defense held the nation's leading rusher in Connecticut's Donald Brown to 107 rushing yards on 27 attempts, including just seven yards in the second half. It was his lowest output of the season by 39 yards. It is also 70.8 yards below his average.
Today's game marked the second time in 2008 Rutgers played against the nation's leading rusher. On Sept. 20 at Navy, the Scarlet Knights faced that week's national leading rusher in Shun White of Navy, who was held to 85 yards.
The third quarter safety by Blair Bines (Shirley, N.Y.) marked Rutgers first safety since Nov. 11, 2005 at Louisville.
UConn's 117 rushing yards marked its lowest output on the ground this season.
Rutgers held UConn to 10 points, its lowest scoring output since the Huskies suffered a 27-3 loss at Cincinnati on Nov. 10, 2007.
Rutgers has now allowed just 23 combined points (13 vs. Cincinnati) in it last two BIG EAST contests.
The attendance of 42,491 marked the 14th consecutive sellout at Rutgers Stadium.
Player Notes
Redshirt senior QB Mike Teel (Oakland, N.J.) passed Scott Erney (7,188 yards from 1986-89) for second place in Rutgers history in career passing yardage. He now has 7,327 yards in his career.
Teel moved into eighth place in BIG EAST history and passed former Boston College quarterback Glenn Foley with 537 career completions. Teel is also seventh in BIG EAST history with 960 career attempts, moving ahead of former West Virginia quarterback Marc Bulger (933 attempts) and Syracuse's Donovan McNabb (938 attempts).
Senior DT Pete Tverdov (Union, N.J.) extended his streak to nine-consecutive games with a tackle for loss, dating back to last season. He has posted a TFL in 14 of 16 games he has played over the last two years. He had 1.5 TFLs in the game.
Junior WR
Kenny Britt (Bayonne, N.J.) passed
Marco Battaglia (2,221 yards from 1992-95) and moved into third place on the Rutgers all-time receiving yards list with his nine catch, 107-yard performance against the Huskies. He now has 2,243 receiving yards for his career. He has nine career 100-yard receiving games, a school record.
Redshirt junior QB Domenic Natale (Seagirt, N.J.) made his first career appearance in the first quarter. He also registered his first career pass and first career completion in the quarter. Natale finished the game 2-for--5 for 26 yards, including a long pass of 19 yards.
Redshirt sophomore TE Shamar Graves (Woodbridge, N.J.) made his first career start at tight end. He also caught his first passes of the season and finished with two catches for 23 yards, including a 22-yard reception on third down in the fourth quarter.
Senior CB Jason McCourty (Nanuet, N.Y.) made his first career appearance as a returner on kickoffs. He totaled one return for 32 yards.
Redshirt freshman PK San San Te (Conover, N.C.) connected on an 18-yard field goal in the first quarter giving him six-straight successful field goal attempts. He had his streak snapped with a miss on a 42-yard attempt in the second quarter.
Redshirt freshman P Teddy Dellaganna (Templeton, Calif.) punted seven times for 292 yards, a 41.7 average. He dropped four punts inside the 20, had a long punt of 56 yards and had two touchbacks.
Senior FS Courtney Greene (New Rochelle, N.Y.) had nine assisted tackles to give him 153 for his career. He surpassed Darrin Czellecz (151, 1986-89) and is now tied with Devraun Thompson (2003-06) for fourth place in career assisted stops at RU.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Greg Schiano
On RU's Defense: "I thought they played very well. That's a good offensive football team and a great running back. We've been playing hard the whole season, they've been productive the last few weeks and it's good to see it's starting to click."
On Donald Brown: "He popped a few big runs in the first half and I thought other than those few runs, we did a good job of stopping him."
On Domenic Natale playing: "We're not scoring points on offense so we're trying to do some things. Shamar (Graves) played a bunch today and I thought he did a good job. We're playing a bunch of wide receivers. The offensive line, we've already kind of moved around. We're just trying to get it going and there's some things that Dom does, his skills, that are a little different than Mike's (Teel). So we're trying to use everything we have in the program to generate offense."
On the crowd's reaction to Mike Teel: "I've said it many times over the years; certainly it's their prerogative to do what they want. They buy their ticket. I just caution them because these are college kids, they are not pro athletes. They don't get paid. They get paid a minuscule (amount). If you take their scholarship and take it down to the hourly wage, there is not a person in this room that would ever, ever consider doing it for what they do it for and I promise you that. If they want to boo me, that's another story. If I'm screwing up, go ahead, but it's hard to distinguish who they're booing. It's somebody's son. If you have kids, it's somebody's son and I feel for them when it happens. But he's a tough sucker."
On Teddy Delaganna's day: "He had a big, big day. I thought he did a great job. He started out a little slow on the kickoff and from there he picked up steam, and away he went. Not only on the punts, which were obvious, but on the kickoffs too. We were trying not to kick it to number one (Darius Butler) and he did a very good job of that."
On the close early safeties: "I didn't have a good view on the sideline, but you sure hope it is because you see a lot of action in the end zone. They're going to review every play so I'm sure they reviewed it. One thing I've learned over the years is for it to be called a safety; it clearly has to be a safety. If it's close, it's not going to be and that's probably the right thing."
On how important the win was for the team: "People have asked me all along 'how are you doing'. I said look, I'm doing fine. Our kids come every week and are trying harder and harder. Our coaches are doing a great job, but I'm not naive to the fact that you can get warn out if you keep doing it and don't get the end result that you're trying to get. It's a one game season and we're 1-0 after today and that's good. Now we have another one game season."
On the offense after only scoring 10 points: "I want to watch the tape. Again we're dropping passes. You don't realize how important that is because you go out and punt. We're getting balls knocked down, why is that happening? You can blame that on the quarterback, but if an offensive lineman has a defender on the line of scrimmage, you know he's going to jump and there are things you can do to make sure he doesn't jump. So there are little things, but as a coach, if guys are trying their guts out, that's all you can ask for."
On how Mike handled not playing the whole game: "Mike handled it great. Those two kids are helping each other, talking to one another. They come over on the timeout and Dom and Mike are going over things. I assumed and believed that would happen, but you never know until you're in it."
On what he was thinking when the ball hit the goal post: "I'm thinking we have one timeout and what are we going to do on offense. I can't do anything about that kick. All I can do is be prepared. I was also checking the time chart because if he did miss it, I wanted to see if we could kill it without running a play, which we couldn't unfortunately. We had to run a play."
"I knew it was going right, I just didn't know how far right."
On Jourdan Brooks: "I'm disappointed. I didn't do a good enough job of monitoring that. Not that Kordell (Young) wasn't going to get the lion's share of the carries, but Jourdan could have helped us. We could have got him in there. That's me not keeping good enough track of it and probably not communicating well enough with the staff. I talked to Jourdan and he's going to play. Right now Kordell is the first team tailback and he's going to get the lion's share of the carries, but Jourdan needs to play some."
On the QB situation going forward: "We're going to evaluate. Every game we evaluate. We made that evaluation after last week and knew we were going to get Dom in there and do some things. From watching on the field, I think we did some good things and then some not so good things. So let me look at it and then figure that out."
On Jason McCourty fielding kicks: "He's been fielding kicks since training camp. And all along our coach here, coach Hewitt who works with the kickoff returns, has been saying this is our best kickoff returner. We threw him in there. At practice he took one to the house so I said let's give him a try."
On all the close games recently: "I like them. To me this is why you do it, the competition and being in the middle of stuff. I mean I'll take a blowout any day but to me this is the fun part of it, when you're thinking and you're working the entire day. It builds your program when you learn to how to deal with that pressure and adversity. That's all collective growth for your entire program."
On Blair Bines: "He's a very athletic guy. When Blaire is comfortable and knows what he's doing and feels comfortable, he can be a destructive force in there because he's such a good athlete."
On Kenny Britt's health status: "Kenny got bumped around a little today. He plays so darn hard and he's up in the air so much, but he came back. I'm sure he'll be sore tomorrow."
On Ramy Nubani's injury: "He's okay. It was scary though. When a guy goes down and doesn't move, I was very scared. I ran out there and was listening to the conversation, I got there midway, and then things started to get better. I couldn't do anything to help other than to pray over him."
PLAYER QUOTES
MIKE TEEL, 5th Sr., QB #14
"I felt good today. We came together as a team and were able to fight for this victory. When (Domenic) Natale was playing, I was able to watch the defense, and prepare for what they would come at us with. We had a team effort today."
"The boos coming from the fans did not bother me. I know our fans are disappointed and frustrated with our start this season, and so are we. We all expect to be successful and continue the good run we've had over the past few seasons. But our team is a family, and we are going to get through this. Today was a nice win for us and we look to carry the momentum to next week."
DOMENIC NATALE, R-Jr., QB, #11
"I was excited to play today, and fought through the butterflies. As the number-two quarterback, you have to be ready to play at a moment's notice. I prepared during practice and felt ready to play today. I wanted to show the guys that they can trust me. When you do the right things, your teammates will trust you. I have a very good relationship with them, and I want to continue to have them believe in me."
"Mike Teel is our offensive captain and he has done a tremendous job. He has shouldered a lot, and has been very composed during our tough start."
KENNY BRITT, Jr., WR #88
"We worked hard all week in practice and played our hearts out today. I feel like we're going in the right direction. Week to week we are getting better. We can celebrate today's win, and then begin practicing Sunday night for next week's game at Pittsburgh."
"Both Mike (Teel) and Domenic (Natale) looked good today. We all do our part to help us win, and today was no different."
BLAIR BINES, Jr., DT #48 "The safety we had was great. Our defense worked so hard today, and we came very close to getting a safety on two other occasions. I guess the third time was a charm, and those two points really energized our team."
"Our defense made some adjustments in the second half, and we were able to close the gaps UConn was getting during the game. Field position was also a huge factor today. Teddy (Dellaganna) had some great punts which were a big help in establishing the tempo."
