On defense, Rutgers played soft zone coverage for most of the game, but I think they did blitz a little more than they did last week. Hooray for one size fits all game planning! Blake Bortles predictably picked the secondary apart, and he even made some guys look bad tackling in the open field when he took off running. I would venture to guess that Rutgers didn't hit this week in practice since they had a quick turn around. If that is indeed the case, it really showed. They did a pretty solid job against the run, but Long Island native Will Staback ran over a couple Scarlet Knights on two different plays like he was a Humvee rolling through some high grass or something.
The lone bright spot on defense was Darius Hamilton, who recorded two and a half sacks, as well as a few other hurries on Bortles. He probably could have had like six sacks if they just let him go one on one against UCF's interior lineman, but they decided to stunt him to the outside (on a couple of running downs too!) and drop him into coverage quite often. I can not for the life of me figure out why. He was also once again a big part of the strong run defense. I legitimately feel bad for this kid, he could have gone anywhere he wanted and he picked Rutgers. He is developing into a star, but now he's stuck on a struggling team that is going nowhere in a hurry.
I have long been a believer in Gary Nova, but...I just don't know what to say anymore. He's not getting the job done right now. He shows flashes of brilliance, but he is just as often flat out terrible. He completed an impossibly bad 11-34 passes, and continued to make poor decisions and throw inaccurate balls. I would say he should be benched, but they don't have a viable replacement. I want him to succeed so much, and poor coaching no doubt is a big reason for his struggles, but he is just not giving them a chance to win.
Outside of Michael Burton's 38 yard run on a fake punt, the Scarlet Knights ran the ball 16 times for 31 yards. That is really bad. They have five offensive line coaches on the staff, and this is what they get? It took them four chances to punch the ball in from the 1 for their lone offensive touchdown of the game, and they threw the ball on a few 3rd and 1's. They have no faith in the running game I guess. Paul James has been a nonfactor since returning, even though he scored a touchdown Thursday. I'm not sure why they didn't even attempt to go no huddle.
Tyler Kroft caught a career high 9 passes in this one, but that was pretty much it for the positives. The team clearly misses Betim Bujari at center, since they seemingly can not set up pass protections or identify who to block in the run game with out him. Nova was very bad, but his receivers did not help him either. I think Brandon Coleman dropped three passes, Leonte Carroo two.
Burton had the run on the fake punt to set up the first touchdown, and Anthony Cioffi blocked a punt that was recovered by Andre Patton in the endzone. Hooray for two guys who should be redshirting! Special teams is the only reason Rutgers didn't get shut out.
UCF is a really good team. They might even have more talent than Rutgers, which I did not believe was possible before the season. But still, the Scarlet Knights should not be getting trounced like this. They were totally and complete dominated, humiliated, what ever you want to say. Enough is enough. I'm sick of watching this shit. Be competitive and beat an actual team once in a while. It is just flat out not fun watching this team play anymore.
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