The Rutgers football team is 0-3 on the road this season…and it will be 0-4 by Saturday evening after the Scarlet Knights lose a Big East game at number-17 Pittsburgh…and lose any hope of a winning season in 2008. Let’s get to the bottom line right away. I’m picking R-U to lose to the favored Panthers 24-10…failing to cover the ten-point spread…and seeing their three-game winning streak over Dave Wannstedt’s Pitt program come to an end.
Rutgers comes in at 2-5 overall, needing to run the table in the final five games in order to finish with a winning record. The Scarlet Knights are 1-2 in the Big East. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is 5-1 overall and 2-0 in league, tied for first with arch-rival West Virginia. The Panthers are coming off a 42-21 win at Navy last Saturday which was preceeded by a big Big East victory at USF. Pitt has a strong ground game, led by sophomore running back LeSean McCoy, who is 13th in the nation in yards per game. McCoy has 689 yards rushing with ten touchdowns. The quarter is redshirt junior Bill Stull who has thrown for nearly 13-hundred yards and four touchdowns. BUT it’s Pittsburgh’s DEFENSE that drives the team. The Panthers are tenth in the nation in pass defense, 11th in total sacks and 20th in total defense. Leading the way is senior linebacker Scott McKillop, who leads the Big East in tackles and tackles for losses. I expect the Pittsburgh defense will dominate the underachieving Rutgers offense…and even though the Scarlet Knight “d” will continue to play well…it will be too much of Pitt on the road…leading to a R-U 24-10 loss in the Steel City. And, in addition to it being a loss that will knock out any chance of a winning season, it also will put the Knights on the brink of bowl game ineligibility since the best they could do then is 6-6, which probably will not be enough to get a post-season berth. Just ask last season’s Louisville Cardinals.
