Don’t look now, but Rutgers has a big game coming up

It would have seemed far fetched a couple of seasons ago, but Rutgers’ football team has an important Big Ten game coming up this Saturday. The 3-0 Scarlet Knights travel to Ann Arbor, MI, to play the 19th ranked (and also 3-0) Michigan Wolverines.

The Scarlet Knights’ last trip to the Big House didn’t go so well, as they were embarrassed by Michigan, 52-0, but that was before the return of coach Greg Schiano. Their previous coach, Chris Ash, was fired after that loss to Michigan.

Under Schiano, Rutgers has notched three pretty convincing victories, defeating Temple, Syracuse, and Delaware. So, expectations are that this trip will go better than the last one. Plus, Rutgers almost knocked off Michigan last year at home, finally falling in triple overtime.

Two players have been suspended for a paintball gun incident and their status for Saturday is up in the air.

The matchup to watch is Michigan’s rushing attack vs. Rutgers’ rush defense. Michigan is averaging 350 yards on the ground after their most recent win, a 63-14 thrashing of Northern Illinois. Rutgers, defense, on the other hand, is giving up only 83 yards on the ground per game, ranking fifth in the conference in that category.

The game is also being televised as ABC’s premiere 3:30 national game, giving the Scarlet Knights a chance to show the country how much they’ve improved recently. While Rutgers is still a heavy underdog (18.5 points), they showed last year that they can hang with the big dogs, so maybe this is the year for a big upset.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle. Any opinions expressed are Bill Doyle's own.