Turnovers cost Rutgers in loss to No. 14 Penn State
PISCATAWAY >> If Rutgers had anything even resembling a passing game, perhaps it would have had a chance against No. 14 Penn State. But, they don’t.
So, they didn’t.
What was surprisingly a very winnable game for the Scarlet Knights turned into just another loss, this one by the score of 20-7 in front of an announced crowd of 44,840 fans at HighPoint.com Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
A stellar performance by the defense that limited Penn State quarterback Trace McSorley’s offense to just 322 total yards was negated thanks to an uneven performance on the other side of the ball; Raheem Blackshear led the rushing attack with 102 yards and the Scarlet Knights’ only touchdown of the game, but true freshman Art Sitkowski didn’t make it out of the second quarter after completing only three of his seven passes for just 18 yards and also added two more interceptions to an FBS-worst 18 on the season.
After the game, head coach Chris Ash was non-committal in starting either Ash or senior Gio Rescigno, who helped spark the offense to some extent in relief of Sitkowski, in the season finale at Michigan State next Saturday. He was, however, asked why he remained confident in his upstart signalcaller despite every possible statistic suggesting he shouldn’t.
“Because he’s going to work extremely hard,” Ash said. “He’s an intelligent kid. He cares. He’s learning a whole new offense this year. He hadn’t played in a long time before he started this year. What we’ve seen in practices, we’ve got to be able to get that to consistently show up on the game field on Saturdays.
“Player development, that’s what it’s called. A freshman that’s done some good things this year, struggled at times, through continued work, continued reps, doing the same thing over and over, he’ll improve.”
While there’s nowhere to go but up for the unfailingly affable Sitkowski or the program as a whole, the fact remains that Rutgers was in this game when most thought it would be just another ill-fated, Big 10 blowout.
Penn State (8-3) got on the board with 2:27 left in the first quarter with a 22-yard Jake Pinegar field goal, but didn’t truly start gaining momentum until Sitkowski and the offense started turning the ball over.
Sitkowski’s second pick of the game — arguably his worst of the season, one in which he threw off his back foot in attempt to simply throw the ball away, but instead put it right into defender Garrett Taylor’s hands
— turned into six points when McSorley was able to find tight end Pat Freiermuth, who would haul in a fourth quarter scoring strike as well, from five yards out with 2:04 left in the first half to make it a 10-0 game.
Pinegar added another short field goal to send the Nittany Lions to the locker room with a 13-0 lead at the half, a relatively manageable deficit given what Rutgers had been used to.
A golden opportunity came and went with 6:04 left in the third quarter, when Rutgers (1-10) found themselves going for it on fourth and two and elected to call the “Philly Special” play made famous in Super Bowl
52. Except this time, the wide open Rescigno dropped the ball in the end zone, which seemed to squash had any momentum the Scarlet Knights had, and also failed to take advantage of the emotion in the building given this was the last time the senior class, Rescigno included, would be playing at home.
“It’s tough, honestly I don’t want to take my jersey off,” he said. “There are a lot of good memories, a lot of hard work, ups and downs. I’ve enjoyed my time here; playing at home, it’s so special to me, I’ll cherish it forever…I don’t think my career is ending on a low note. Wins and losses don’t define my career, they don’t define the impact I’ve given the younger guys…I’m not going to look back and say my career ended really bad because I dropped a pass in the end zone or we lost to Penn State.” Rescigno paused for a second. “For a day or two, it might be like that,” he quipped.
As a whole, though, the season has been an unmitigated disaster, creating a legacy for a year that will last far longer than just a day or two. Things need to improve. Soon.
That process starts, Ash says, with continuing to work hard.
“We’ve got a lot of young players that are playing,” Ash said. “We’re going to have a returning quarterback coming back. We’ve got four of our five offensive linemen that started the game coming back. We’re going to have the same offensive coordinator coming back. We’re going to be able to work a lot of the same concepts offensively in the off-season instead of installing another new offense, and that’s invaluable.
“To be able to rep the same things over and over and over, that’s how you develop players. And if you’re constantly changing offenses, changing schemes, it’s hard to improve. That’s where it starts right there. And just good old fashioned hard work.”