The Knights Watchman

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights kick off the season at home against the University of Washington Huskies in the "War Before the Shore," paying homage to New Jerseyans' time honored tradition of heading for the coast during Labor Day weekend. A rematch from last year's 48-13 thrashing, this revamped Rutgers team heads into the contest as 27.5 point underdogs. I'm not sure what exactly to expect out of Rutgers on Friday night. As Coach Ash said in his game week press conference, "this is a different football team." Half of the Rutgers team has changed over since the end of last season. Counting Justin Davidovicz, who the coaching staff announced will be handling kickoffs, there are twenty-four new faces on the Rutgers two-deep. That includes true freshmen, redshirt freshmen, and transfers. But that does not include a few other players who may see the field on special teams units or as part of certain offensive or defensive packages. As an examp...

Start Times for Five 2017 Football Games The Big Ten has announced the start times of five upcoming Rutgers football games for the 2017 season: 9/1 home vs. Washington will air at 8:00 p.m. on FS1 9/23 at Nebraska , 3:30 p.m. 10/21 vs. Purdue, Noon 10/28 at Michigan , Noon 11/11 at Penn State , Noon Check out the official press release atscarletknights.com Michael Burton Signed by the Chicago Bears ESPN reporter Field Yates was the first to report that the Chicago Bears have signed former Rutgers fullback Michael Burton. That did not take long for Burton , who joins former Scarlet Knight Marcus Cooper on the Bears. Rice to Coach New Rochelle Running Backs Ray Rice has landed at his alma mater, New Rochelle High School as the school's running backs coach. It's is good to see that Ray continues to make positive steps as he continues to rebuild his image. Kevin Devaney, Jr., broke the news for News12 Varsity.

Having had a night to sleep on and sleep off the Rutgers 48-13 shellacking at the hands of the Washington Huskies, I feel like I can look at the game a little more objectively. I'm going to break the game down into some general comments, positives, negatives, and hand out some game balls. The game got off to an inauspicious start with Janarion Grant's 12-yard kickoff return, giving Rutgers woeful field position at their own 15. But Justin Goodwin immediately picked up 9 yards rushing on the next two plays. Rutgers found themselves in a good position with a third and 1 at their own 24. Goodwin got stuffed on that third-and-one play and things quickly degenerated. Had Rutgers made that third down conversion I believe it would have been a different football game. The outcome would've still been a Rutgers loss, but I think the game would've been much closer in the sense that RU would've at least covered the 26.5 point spread. Another thing that struck me ...