Chas Dodd Impresses Darnell Stapleton In Win

RU Rah Rah

Friday nights performance was hands down the Scarlet Knights best showing of the season and should give us all confidence that they can compete with rest of the Big East and have a chance to come out conference champions.

It wasn’t a blow out, and that is fine because a win is a win! When you play talented teams the games are going to be close. Winning the close games are signs of a good team!

Less Sanu and less wildcat turn out to be the key to getting the Rutgers offense jump started. We saw less gun and run, more down hill runs and many more pass attempts down the field to a selection of receivers. Freshman QB, Chas Dodd used all his receivers, not just Mohamed Sanu.

I think by them getting the other receivers involved, it will take a lot of pressure off Sanu and in the long run allow him to be more successful. I was impressed watching Dodd. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was a 3 year starter. He controlled the game did not make any big mistakes while trying to force the ball into tight coverages.

Dodd took safe shots down the field where he knew his receivers had a great chance to come up with the ball. I think his performance is going to make it tough for the coaches to put  Tom Savage back in even when he is healthy.

The Rutgers defense which have been playing ‘bend but don’t break’ defense, had another stellar performance. Even though UCONN scored 24 points, which the most allowed this season by the Scarlet Knights defense, you take away the UCONN kick return they would have been around there season average of 15.5 points per game allowed.

The Scarlet knights held UCONN under 300 yards of total offense, but gave up an average of 5 yards on run plays. That could hurt them down the line when they play teams with better offensive lineman and running backs.

If they fine tweak a few things this week,  Rutgers should be ready to shut down Army and their run game. The next Rutgers game will take place at the New Meadowlands Stadium on Saturday, against Army.