Offense: A-
Defense: D-
Special Teams: F

I can't say enough great things about Parker Navarro and Smith's offense in general. The play designs and play calling are excellent. Hendricks with a great breakout game, and some TEs involved early!

Hauser did a nice job getting the defense adjusted for the 2nd half.

Special Teams was a black hole disaster! KILLED US.

Great entertainment, though, even if the games these days are a bit rigged for the big schools. Non-calls and puzzling calls against Ohio at important moments.

The defensive holding call occurred on 3rd down. If instead it’s a no call, then it would have been 4th down, Rutgers would have gone for it, and Rutgers would have converted. It was that kind of night.

Now at the hotel...

Fun atmosphere. Walking by invited into a tailgate that was fantastic! Shout out to Rutgers Fans.

Clean up the illegal procedures on offense to not slow/stop a drive and we may beat them Mountaineers!

Three non-calls on defensive pass inference were, IMHO, the difference in the game. One in the first half was so atrocious that a Rutgers fan in front of me turned around when he heard me yelling at the ref, and said, “Yes that was blatant interference.” This no call gave the ball to RU since it was then 4th down rather than a 1st down if the call had been made. Another one occurred right in front of me where a Rutgers player basically did a rolling tackle of a potential OHIO receiver with a ref looking right at the play and did nothing. Reminds me of the last time I saw an OHIO-Rutgers game and the refs called defensive pass interference against us when the RU player pushed off an Ohio defender in what should have been an obvious offensive pass interference. I had a better view of that play than the ref did, but it still should have been obvious from his vantage point. B10/18 refs are RU seem not to be the best in the business. I’m not a happy camper at the moment.

My grades:

Offense A-
Defense D+ (C+ the second half)
Special teams F-

Kudos to the offensive line. They did not give up a sack last night.

That holding call was money. Clear grab and restrict on the receiver as he tried to break into his route over the middle. Most definitely impeded his progress.

Frustrating loss. Glad we competed but I have trouble being content with a moral victory. We outplayed them.

Credit Schiano's giant balls going 5 for 5 on 4th down, a couple of which were crazy. That's the biggest difference in the game.

The blocked punt feels big, but let's be honest...with our defense 1st half and our Punter...without the blocked punt we kick it to the 50 and they have a 6 play drive in for a TD anyway. Ironically it may have allowed us the clock to get the big long FG drive to end the 1st half.

The holding penalty...did anyone actually see it? Broadcast didn't really show it, or I did not see it thru my rage. I thought we had the victory for those 3 seconds between thinking they are punting us the ball back and that damn flag. What makes it most upsetting is they called nothing all game, allowed all kinds of grabbing on the lines, contact in the secondary, etc. To make that call there it better have been egregious. Did not take long to be reminded how incredibly infuriating the game of football can be.

Tank Pearson had an awful game. What's the deal with that? He was supposed to be the defensive piece we weren't worried about. I have faith this defense will improve as the weeks go by, just as they did the last 2 seasons.

Parker single handedly will make us competitive in every game (except the outlier in competition OSU). What an incredible run of QBs we have experienced with Rourke/Rourke/Parker.

And Hendricks in for the big year we all expected. He's a beast.

A lot of good things have been said on here about how Parker played last night. One thing I don't believe has been mentioned is how much his targets were spread out. Hendricks had a break out game with 9 catches, but five Bobcats had 2 receptions each - Rodarte, Pugh, Bruno, Gossett and Williams. Bangura had one catch out of the backfield and even Marinaro had one out of the center position. And I can think of at least one target for Harris.

I re-watched a lot of the game this morning... (I made the mistake of re-watching some of those bail out calls for Rutgers as well - we weren't victims of the moment, they were THAT bad and I'm pissed for the team)



My digested takeaways...

- Parker. I'm not certain that is the same kid from the beginning of last year. UCF is kicking themselves. I'm guilty as anyone of being overly critical during games, but he played about as good as I've seen any QB play in one of these MAC v G4 match-ups.

Finn last night threw 2 picks and Miami looked like a dear in headlights. Wisconsin was ranked 40 in ESPN's power index, Rutgers 42. They managed just 117 total yards vs OU's 440 on Rutgers.

- Hendricks stepping right into Wigs/Owen shoes and not skipping a beat. Rodarte and Pugh also had some big catches. Mason and Bruno coming down with some strong TD's. I like what I see.

- Sieh is still good at football, so that's nice. Flow of the game didn't really allow for more carries, but he needs more carries (had 16). We NEED him going early. He should be over 20 every game.

In games Sieh has at least 20 carries, OU is 8-1 (Toledo MACC is the lone L)
In total OU wins he averages 18 carries for 90 yards. In losses, just 12 carries.

- Defense was bizarre. First half there was no defense. They were playing prevent D (still not preventing squat) and letting them chip down the field. If the RB got through the first line, he was gone for an easy 5. Both RB's averaged over 6 yards a carry. The back-up had 10 carries for 70 yards. 2nd half Rutgers couldn't convert. Defense held. Whatever happened in that locker room at half - kudos.

- Brian. He's gonna be a good one. Crisp offense. No offensive turnovers. Out schemed Schiano all night. Schiano has brass balls for going for so many 4th downs, but we were giving up yards in bunches, so I would've gone for it too. Without a few 'lucky' 4th down conversions, we're talking about a win today even with the ref gifting Rutgers multiple calls.

- Scott. Good for you buddy. I dont know how much was Brian and how much was Scott, but the offense was ready and on it. Clean up the snaps. I think he will get better as this was his first FBS game, and coming against a Big 10 team on the road... not an easy task.

- House. We gotta get tougher on D. Obviously, especially on 4th down. I think they went soft as to not get beat early, and we got beat early anyway. They turned it around, by that point the hole was too deep.

- Crable. Great sack. Tank great job opening the lane.

- Adonis had about 40 tackles. Not sure I want my safety leading the team in tackles, but we'll get better.

- DB's had trouble with their duo of 6'3"+ receivers. Not sure outside of Ohio State we'll run into that again.



All in all... what a game. I think WVU's eyes just got a little bit wider. As did the rest of the MAC. I hate a moral victory, but as far as losses go - they put some teams on notice, where as Miami got steamrolled.

Tend to agree with those saying the refs influenced the outcome more than the blocked punt. Rutgers is probably going to score if we get the punt off anyway based on what we saw from the defense early on. The extra time on the clock may have actually helped us.

The no targeting call...I'm at a loss of words. I knew as soon as the big 10 rules official came on saying there wasn't much there to make a call, that Weaver was safe. I can't stand the blatant lying to our faces. That was textbook targeting in multiple ways. So rigged, shameful.

Any word on Hendricks? Came up limping with what looked like hamstring issues twice. Hoping it was just cramping but trying to fight through that is playing with fire. If that hammy pops he's done for 4-6 weeks with high risk of reinjury.

Moral victories suck so I'm not going to call it that and I hope the team isn't viewing it that way either. Lot of positives but equal amount of negatives IMO. We looked like the better team and the better coach for a good portion of the game.

Bring on the mountaineers, I think we're in store for one of the biggest games in program history.

I think the squib kick out of bounds was an attempt to hit a Rutgers player and get a recovery as plan A, and Plan B was worst case scenario spotting it on the 20 due to the penalty on the touchdown prior. If he kicks it in the air and it's either fair caught or goes into the endzone for a touchback it's coming out to the 25, right? Maybe I'm off here but I don't think that particular play was an error.

DBs better get get a bump from G1 to G2 as WVU has a Jax St transfer what had about 200 yards against us in the bowl game.

Anyone noteable injuries to report?