The Scarlet Knights entered Thursday night with plenty of optimism surrounding the 2026 season. A new year meant a fresh opportunity to establish themselves in the Big Ten and build on the progress the program has made during the Schiano 2.0 era.
Even the most pessimistic fans might have thought the team might implode and go 3-9 or 4-8. Even the most nightmarish season prediction of 2-10 would include the token wins against UMass and Howard.
Yet even that prediction might be too kind to this football team, who decided to break the rules of college football and its massive power differences and send its fans into submission for the season.
After Schiano overhauled the entire defensive staff as well as most of the players, the defense somehow regressed from Robb Smith's unmitigated disaster in 2025.
And most surprising of all, a team that features preseason All-Americans at the skill positions in KJ Duff and Antwan Raymond struggled to move the football and score on offense.
Rutgers was manhandled in the trenches, Dylan Lonergan looked beyond awful, and UMass just had their way the entire game. This was no fluke loss for the Scarlet Knights.
Who would have thought?
This isn't about blaming individual players. Football is a team sport, and there was plenty of blame to go around.
It starts and ends at the top with Greg Schiano. He knows it, and everyone else does too.
But Rutgers was simply not good enough in any phase of the game for far too long.
Welcome back to Arnav's Analysis. Here's my detailed breakdown.
The first drive of the game was a productive one for the Knights, with Dylan Lonergan finding Duff for a couple chain-moving plays as well as Raymond picking up yardage on the ground. Lonergan connected with Duff from four yards out to cap a perfect opening drive, and RU went up 7-0 without much of an issue.
That was the last time Rutgers would score until midway through the fourth quarter. Lonergan proceeded to throw three interceptions, underthrow passes, throw hospital balls towards his wide receivers, and run into sacks. It may have been the poorest quarterback display this team has seen in quite some time, which really says a lot given the years of Evan Simon and Gavin Wimsatt at the helm.
He also lost a fumble and proceeded to pull a Cam Newton, standing around instead of going after the ball and the Minutemen recovered. Every time Rutgers had a chance to close the gap, Lonergan threw another interception into tight coverage. UMass honestly could have scored more if not for penalties that derailed some drives. The Knights did not take advantage, playing themselves out of any chance for a comeback.
The offensive line simply did not look good at all. They were completely beaten most of the night, as UMass got to Lonergan early and often with pressures that resulted in the interceptions. All the talk about this being the deepest offensive line in the 2.0 era went to the wayside, as the line could neither pass or run block all game.
Antwan Raymond had a quiet performance, rushing for 42 yards on 14 carries for a measly three yards per rush. A lot of this was due to the offensive line not being able to create rushing lanes, as even when Raymond spun out of tackles and fought for extra yardage, he did not get much. Clay Thevenin was hardly used, picking up four yards on three carries, and Lonergan lost some of the already poor rushing yards by taking ill-advised sacks.
As usual, tight end was a non-factor, with Logan Blake catching one pass for seven yards. On a night where Lonergan could have used a security blanket, Rutgers seemed to have gone the entire offseason without developing their usage of the position in the receiving game. The bright spots, if anything, were the play of AJ Surace and the wide receivers, who seemed to be the only source of dependable offense all game.
KJ Duff was superhuman, picking up right where he left off against Penn State with a monster nine-catch, 196 yard receiving performance that saw him score a hat trick of touchdowns. Duff routinely outmuscled and outleapt Minutemen defenders with his size, speed, and strength, and one of the few highlights of the game was a 78-yard bomb from Lonergan to Duff on a desperation fourth down where Duff broke free for a long score.
The other receivers flashed their talents as well, with starting slot receiver Jourdin Houston catching four passes for 42 yards and Ben Black III hauling in two passes for 37 yards opposite Duff. True freshman Dyzier Carter made an immediate arrival onto the field with three catches for 19 yards, while Vernon Allen III caught a ten-yard pass. Rutgers seemed willing to experiment with their younger receivers with the game out of hand.
Meanwhile, AJ Surace came into the game in the fourth quarter, which was referenced by Schiano as an injury-related decision. Lonergan walked off the field gingerly but on his own power after taking repeated hits by UMass defenders, but Surace immediately led the Knights down the field, going 6-9 for 77 yards and a touchdown to KJ Duff on a beautiful back-shoulder fade. He posted a 91.2 QBR compared to Lonergan's measly 21.0.
Moving over to the defensive side of the football, they pulled off the impossible and looked even worse than they did last season against a much worse opponent. The new-look defensive line looked like an FCS line, they could not generate any pressure on UMass the entire game and William "Pop" Watson III looked like a Heisman candidate. Lineman made substitutions and jogged on and off the field casually, which was disturbing to see.
Watson played a near-perfect game at quarterback, completing 19 of 22 passes for 197 yards and three touchdowns with a QBR of 91.5. He completed a beautiful pass deep left to Joseph Griffin Jr., who made a diving grab, and took advantage of busted coverages for his other two scores. He had time to create, took the yardage Rutgers gave him in the run game, and made some impressive throws while out of the pocket.
Farrell Gnago, who made multiple huge plays for the Knights last season, came up with Rutgers' lone sack as well as a tackle for loss, while DK Gilley, Keshon Griffin, and Malachi Davis each had 0.5 stops behind the line of scrimmage. It was a lackluster showing from the pass rush, the run stop, and just about everything else.
The linebackers were completely unable to stop the run, as Curtis Kimmons IV had 11 carries for 78 yards and a touchdown up the middle to seal the game. Elijah Faulkner had 19 carries for 62 yards, and the Minutemen were able to move Rutgers in the run game as well as make defenders miss in the open field.
Although both looked disappointing, Sean Allison led the Knights with eight total tackles (seven solo), and Ty Morris had six tackles. Moses Walker rounded out the starting trio and saw the most snaps, but all three linebackers had tackling grades of under 30 on Pro Football Focus.
The cornerbacks and safeties did not look good either, with Kevin Levy and Bradlee Jones taking the starting snaps at corner. Mikey Munn took 21 snaps while Kevyn Humes played for eight, while Levy and Humes also had sub-30 PFF tackling grades. None of the cornerbacks held up well against the Minutemen's receivers.
At safety, Latrell Noel, Chris Joines, and Jesse Ofurie may have had some of the better performances on the defense, but as the final line of defense, they were unable to prevent UMass from scoring and the Minutemen exposed busted coverages as teams routinely did with the Knights last season.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts safety Jahmad Harmon had two interceptions, while cornerback Isaiah Reed had the other for the Minutemen. One thing that many fans may have missed, but is worth noting, is that former Rutgers linebacker Timmy Hinspeter led both defenses with nine total tackles (four solo). Although he was a reserve for Rutgers, he played in 11 games for Rutgers in 2024 and registered 16 tackles with one for loss.
This loss was unfathomable for so many reasons. UMass had not won a game all of last season, was on a 16-game losing streak, and had not beaten an FBS opponent since 2023 when it defeated Army.
The Minutemen were 29.5 point underdogs in the sportsbooks by kickoff, a spread that many fans found to be too lenient, and ended up winning the game outright by 16 points. That is a differential of a whopping 45.5 points.
Rutgers shelled out $1.55 million to host UMass, a guaranteed win that looked to be just about as easy as guaranteed wins come on the FBS level. The Minutemen were ranked 137th out of 138th in ESPN's SP+ rankings and late last season, they were ranked as the 239th best college football team across levels, just below FCS Bucknell and above Division II Colorado State-Pueblo. They had never defeated a power conference opponent, and had lost an FCS game to a 3-9 Bryant team that was an afterthought in its own conference.
If the Knights struggled to cover the spread, that would already be cause for concern. UMass covering the spread would have shown signs of worry for things to come. A close win by Rutgers over the Minutemen would loudly ring the alarm bells. A narrow UMass win would have been a complete disaster and already tanked the season.
But what we witnessed last night was so much worse than any of those outcomes. UMass dominated Rutgers in every facet of the game. They had by far the better quarterback and pushed around the Scarlet Knights in the trenches. A hallmark of mismatches like this is that the "bigger" team decides the outcome on both sides of the line of scrimmage, and instead UMass set the tone on both sides of the line.
Rutgers could not protect Lonergan, they could not establish the run, they could not move the ball down the field, and they could not even complete a fourth-and-short on a quarterback sneak deep in UMass territory. They lost four turnovers and showed little desire to get back in the game when given ample opportunities.
On defense, Rutgers had no pass rush, no run defense, no coverage, no turnovers, and nothing to write home about. If this is what is to come from Travis Johansen's unit, then all the offseason hires were dramatically oversold. The linebackers did not look Big Ten ready at all, and none of the players from lower levels seemed to transfer up to the Big Ten, which is especially concerning given the level of opponent they played yesterday.
On special teams, UMass pinned Rutgers at the one-yard line, converted field goals from beyond 50 yards, and appeared to be the more disciplined team with substitutions and penalties (although they also made a ton of untimely mistakes that derailed drives). Even with that, UMass had no problem routing Rutgers on the road.
Either Rutgers really was as bad as they played yesterday, or they played worse than their level and will improve quickly. If the first is true, Rutgers is beyond screwed once Big Ten play starts, and even next week in Chestnut Hill against a Power Four opponent in Boston College.
My hope is that Rutgers was not quite as poor of a football team as they showed yesterday, and they will improve quickly. I also do believe that UMass is significantly improved from the winless disaster of 2025. However, with the schedule getting significantly tougher, it will not matter too much for the win total once Big Ten play starts.
With the injury suffered by Lonergan as well as his performance, Rutgers will have a decision to make at quarterback against Boston College. Fans may wonder whether the Knights will use the injury as rationale to make the QB switch, or whether they will roll out Lonergan against his former team next Friday evening.
The Scarlet Knights will look to salvage their season in what now looks like a monumental uphill battle against the Eagles next Friday night in Chestnut Hill. Until then, Rutgers fans will be wondering what went so wrong, because this loss surpasses all the other bad losses and takes the cake as the worst in program history.
This loss was a slap in the face to the students who packed the stands on a hot late summer day, the alumni who returned to SHI Stadium hoping for much bigger things, the donors and administration who have tried so hard to get Rutgers the financial support needed to compete, and to every single fan in the stands who came out to watch that joke of a football team that took the field last night.
Six years of progress in the Greg Schiano 2.0 era may have gotten erased last night, and for a team that takes pride in beating nonconference opponents, being in the Big Ten, and making incremental improvements over time, that performance was nothing short of utterly unacceptable and beyond disgraceful.
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