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| Sept. 13, 2014 • Piscataway, N.J. • High Point Solutions Stadium • Attendance: 53,774 |
By Tom Luicci
ScarletKnights.com
PISCATAWAY, N.J. (Sept. 13, 2014) - One bad defensive series -- after nearly 57 minutes of stellar play by the unit -- proved to be Rutgers' undoing in its naticipated Big Ten Conference opener last night.
Penn State's Christian Hackenberg drove his team 80 yards in six plays, with Bill Belton finishing the drive with a five-yard run with 1:13 to play, as the Nittany Lions rallied for a 13-10 victory over the Scarlet Knights before a record crowd of 53,774 at High Point Solutions Stadium tonight.
Held in check most of the game, Hackenberg needed just 1:49 to drive those 80 yards after Penn State (3-0) took over at its 20 yard line trailing 10-6. A 53-yard completion to Geno Lewis followed shortly after by a 23-yard completion to Lewis were the key plays in the drive.
Rutgers (2-1) could not overcome five interceptions by quarterback Gary Nova despite the strong defensive effort.
Hackenberg finished 25-of-44 for 309 yards despite game-long pressure.
The Scarlet Knights led all evening until that Belton touchdown run with 73 seconds remaining, limiting the Nittany Lions to a pair of Sam Ficken field goals in the second half until the game-winning drive by Penn State.
It had been the return of Rutgers' stout defensive play - and just enough fancy footwork by Nova - that turned out to be the difference in a surprisingly low-scoring first half that saw Rutgers claim a hard-fought 10-0 halftime lead tonight.
Though Nova struggled with his passing early on (he was 8-of-15 for 125 yards with two interceptions in the first half), his new-found mobility proved to be a fitting reward for a defense that deserved some help from the offense.
Facing a third and two from the Nittany Lions 14 yard line, Nova took off on a scramble, using a spin move at the 3 yard line to avoid safety Malik Golden before diving into the end zone for a touchdown - the second rushing score of his career.
That gave Rutgers a 7-0 lead with 11:32 left in the second quarter, and provided some relief for a defense that kept Hackenberg and Penn State's offense in check despite several tests.
An assist by the special teams was critical to Rutgers' ability to take an early lead, with Leonte Carroo blocking a punt (in addition to catching three passes for 52 yards in the first half) and Kemoko Turay blocking a 34-yard field goal try by the Nittany Lions to keep the game scoreless.
Roughed up in the second half against Howard last week (259 yards allowed after halftime), and victimized for a school-record 532 passing yards by Washington State in the opener, Rutgers' defense returned to its dominant ways.
Penn State managed just 102 yards of total offense in the first half, with the Nittany Lions limited to 23 rushing yards.
Hackenberg, victimized by several drops, finished the first half 9-of-17 for 79 yards.
Nova's two first quarter interceptions, though, had Rutgers' defense on its heels. But the unit responded every time it needed to in the first half.
The offense, meanwhile, did just enough to make that defensive effort pay dividends. In addition to Nova's touchdown run, which capped a 10-play, 80-yard drive, Rutgers did just enough on its final drive to get a double-digit halftime lead.
Pinned at their own seven yard line with 5:05 left before halftime, Rutgers moved deep enough and far enough to get 32-yard field goal from Kyle Federico just 12 seconds before the break.
Rutgers' running game had some early success, most of it by Desmon Peoples, finishing with 74 yards on 19 carries through the first two quarters. The Scarlet Knights had 199 yards of total offense then.
GAME NOTES
Team
- The attendance of 53,774 was the highest in stadium history and was the 11th crowd of more than 50,000. Nine of the top 18 crowds in stadium history have happened in the 15 home games since the start of the 2012 season. Tonight marked the fourth sellout at the expanded stadium.
- The previous stadium attendance record was 53,737 versus Cincinnati (9/7/09).
- Rutgers blocked two kicks on the night - a field goal by Kemoko Turay and a punt by Leonte Carroo. It was the second consecutive game for RU with two blocks. The last time that happened was in 2010 in the games against Norfolk State and FIU.
o The Scarlet Knights have now blocked 39 kicks since 2009, the most in the nation. - The defense collected five sacks for the second time in three games to start the season. In 13 games last season, RU had two games with at least two sacks.
- Rutgers held Penn State scoreless in the first half - it was the first time since the 2012 Russell Athletic Bowl the defense went to break allowing zero points.
- Rutgers and Penn State combined to play a scoreless first quarter. The last time an RU game featured no points in the opening quarter was in 2012 at Pittsburgh.
- Rutgers finished its second consecutive game with at least five sacks. It marked the first time since the final three games of the 2008 season that Rutgers totaled five or more sacks in multiple games.
- Rutgers limited Penn State to 64 net yards rushing on 33 attempts (1.9 yards per carry).
Individual
Nova scored his second career rushing touchdown in the second quarter from 14 yards out. His other rushing score came last season on a bootleg play at SMU.
Carroo recorded six catches in the game for the second time this season. His career-best was seven last season versus Temple.
Longa tied for the Rutgers lead with nine tackles in the game. He has tied or led the team in tackles in 12 of his 16 career games.
Federico converted a 32-yard field goal in the second quarter. He has now 22 career successful field goals, good for 10th in school history.
Turay picked up his second field goal block in as many weeks.
Snyder finished with a career-high 1.5 sacks. His previous career-high was one sack.
GAME QUOTES
COACH FLOOD: Let me start by thanking our fans, our student section. I thought the game day environment here today was as good as any in the country. And I think what we're going to find out here at Rutgers is as the teams from Big Ten continue to come in, it will be like that on a weekly basis, and that's exciting I think for our program and I'm glad a lot of the people that were here today got a chance to see that.
We're a really hurting team right now. You play a close game against a good football team and you win at the end like we did in the first game, there's exuberance, and then you play a close game and you don't win, and it's devastating; And it's probably a good word I can use for our team right now.
The reality is, in a game like that, it comes down to the fourth quarter. They made one more play than we did. My hat is off to them. James has got a good football team, and like I said, they made one more play than we did this evening. Questions.
Q. Is there anything differently they did in the second half to kind of mix things up a bit?
COACH FLOOD: I don't think they did anything differently. They have an excellent defensive lineman, No. 98. They have a good defensive line in general but No. 98, we couldn't handle him in the second half. And when you look at the lack of production on offense, it won't be the only place to look but it's probably the place to start. That kid is a good football player and we didn't do enough to control him. He controlled the second half of that game.
Q. With the five interceptions, what did you see from Gary and how much of a concern is that?
COACH FLOOD: It's a concern. You lose the turnover battle, it's hard to win the game. So there's no doubt it's a concern. The first one is a tip. One of them is a shot to a guy who makes a lot of plays for us, No. 4. I know one of them as was a good decision, bad location so, it's a physical error.
But is it a concern? Yeah, absolutely it's a concern. You don't win a lot of games if you turn it over five times.
Q. You said one was a bad decision. I know you have to watch the film but --
COACH FLOOD: No, I said good decision, bad location. I've got to look at the other two. They may be. I don't know yet. What were you going to say?
Q. I was going to say, was it the decision making that's the concern?
COACH FLOOD: One of them is a tip. One of them is a shot. One of them is a good decision, bad location. The other two I have to look at on film.
Q. Was there a concern with the way the one game was going because of how their nose guard was playing? Is that why you stuck with the pass in the second half?
COACH FLOOD: I knew going into the game, that it was going to be a test of wills running the football. I knew we were going to be good against the run. I knew they were going to be good against the run. Statistically, if you look at what they have done, I think teams were averaging 1.7 yards a carry against them going into the game.
I thought we ran the ball okay in the first half, not great, but effectively. We had enough that it allowed us to continue to run the ball, and I did not feel that way in the second half.
Q. After all the talk in the off-season about the progress that Gary has made and now we're back at the same place where he's inaccurate and mistake-prone, is there any thought you might have to giving someone else a try?
COACH FLOOD: Not right now. We just got done playing a really emotional game. We're going to look at the film. We're going to evaluate every player in the program on the film and then we'll make the personnel decisions on Sunday and Monday.
But I wouldn't -- I wouldn't say that right now, just getting out of that game. It's just too emotional a situation right now.
Q. What did you think of Hackenberg's performance? Especially in the final gun?
COACH FLOOD: He's poised. He's a good player. We knew that going in. He's one of the better quarterbacks in the country, and I think we sacked him five times. But he stays in there and again he makes the play at the end of the game. They made the play at the end and we didn't, and I'm disappointed. I'm not disappointed in any one person, but I'm disappointed in us as a program that we didn't make that play.
Q. Your defense gives you tremendous effort. Is it fair to expect them to come up with one more stop at the end there? Were they just out of gas at the end?
COACH FLOOD: I think if you asked them, they would say yes.
Again, my experience tells me that there's going to be have to be games that you're going to have to win that are high scoring, and there's going to be games that you're going to have to win that are going to be low scoring; and you win and lose them all as a team.
Now I was excited about our defensive performance in the first game even though we gave up points because I felt like we made enough plays to win the game, and that's ultimately the judge of what you do on Saturdays and that scoreboard and who is 1-0.
Q. A lot of times you refer to that statement, but only get that first chance to make the first impression; did you think you made one at all, or is it a disappointing one or what do you think?
COACH FLOOD: Our football team, we're disappointed in the impression we made because we're 0-1. For our program and the people that were here today that got a snapshot view of what our football program is, I think they had a great experience before the game; I think the environment of the game was as good as it's been here. And I've been here for ten years, and I think I've been here for most of the good ones, so it's as good as it's ever been.
I don't think those things are going to go away because we are 0-1 today. Next time we come in the stadium, I think it will be the same thing.
Q. You talked about Penn State's nose guard, but how --
COACH FLOOD: The three technique.
Q. When you look at your offense, what went wrong for you guys do you think in the second half?
COACH FLOOD: We just weren't able to run the ball efficiently. If we don't run the ball efficiently, it's hard for us to run the offense. We end up behind the sticks.
And then one of the toughest things to do, if you're playing against a good defensive line and you're in the must-pass situations, it gets even harder. And I think without having seen the film yet, that's the second half of the story for us on offense.
Q. What did you guys do differently on defense, because obviously it was the best game you've had on defense in a long time. Why were you able to get to Hackenberg so frequently?
COACH FLOOD: I think it would be the same reason. I think we did a good job of stopping them from running the football. They had 33 rushes for 64 yards and some of that was on quarterback scramble. So I think we did a good job. Going into the game, if I said we can make them one-dimensional we'll have a chance to get to him and we did.
Q. How do you feel about the defensive game plan? You said during the week you were going to try to bring four, but you mixed that up. How do you feel about how that came together?
COACH FLOOD: Looking at it on the field, I think we had a good defensive game plan.
Q. What did you say at the end of the game?
COACH FLOOD: It hurts. It should hurt. But in life, I will not allow them to be defined by their losses. The clock's already ticking on next week, and that doesn't mean you can just forget about this. You don't forget about it. But we'll come in tomorrow and we'll make the corrections.
And we have to move forward, because the next game is coming and the one thing you can't do, is you can't allow one loss to get you twice and if you spend too much time thinking about this after you've evaluated it, after you've owned your mistakes and after you've made the corrections, you're allowing it to distract you from what's coming next. And we've got another game coming.
Q. Who do you lean on the most in the locker room? I know captains, but to make sure you get that message through.
COACH FLOOD: I think it's got to start with your seniors and with your captains, and sure enough, I go in the locker room, and I bring the team up and the guy standing right in front of me is No. 91. So not a senior, but one of our captains, and it's that kind of leadership that I know is going to allow us to come through this on the other side.
SENIOR LB KEVIN SNYDER
On the game: "We had a lot of energy and we played hard. It's just tough when you need that one more play and you can't get it. It's hats off to them because they played hard. We played good defense in the first half but they stayed the course. They just made one more play than we did."
On the defense in the second half: "As a defense I think we played hard. We had calm, composure, and it didn't look like anybody was gassed. We had good rotation with the down linemen. We kept the ball in front of us most of the game. We just had a couple plays get out that we'd like to have back."
On the 53-yard pass on the last drive: "That hurt. But still, we got them out of bounds and we still had an opportunity to be able to make them kick a field goal and keep ourselves in the lead there. It's just one play that we didn't have, and hats off to them for making that one play that we couldn't get."
On the takeaways from the game: "You think about how well we played and how hard we played. We had sound defense for the whole game. Looking back, that whole game we played well, we kept our composure when things didn't go right. We played well when our backs were against the wall. It just shows that we were able to bow our necks and play great defense when we stick to the details of our assignments and play hard."
On the emotions of the game: "I told our guys, no stage is too big, play each play, play our game and we'll be fine. We just try to go 1-0 on each play like Coach Flood says and leave it all on the field."
JUNIOR WR LEONTE CARROO
On the impression the team made: "There's still a lot of football left. We had our game against Penn State and we didn't make history but we did set the tone and show that Rutgers is not going to be taken lightly. They might have thought they would come in here and blow us out. We played hard. I'm proud of my teammates. We just came up a little bit short.
On QB Gary Nova: "Gary's a tough competitor. I know he's going to bounce back from this. He's been in situations like this many times and he's kept his head up. He's one of my best friends and we've been doing this for a while. I just tell him I love him and to keep his head up. I don't care what anyone else says about him, I support him 100 percent."
On the offense: "The key is first downs and touchdowns, we just fell short today."
SENIOR QB GARY NOVA
On the emotions of the game: "We're very disappointed. We had a chance to win the game. We didn't play winning football. As a captain and a leader of this team I let the team down today, but the only thing we can do is get back to work tomorrow and get ready for Navy."
On the second half: "It didn't slip away, we just didn't play good football. We didn't get enough first downs. We put the defense in some bad spots. They played great tonight, we just didn't hold up our end of the bargain."
On the takeaways from the game: "We showed that we can play with anybody in this conference, but at the end of the day we just have to focus on ourselves and try and get better."
