There was an exciting buzz going into the 2024-2025 season for Rutgers football. Coming off a Pinstripe Bowl win against Miami, Rutgers was shaping up against a solid season in the newly expanded Big Ten conference. Standout running back Kyle Monongai, who led the Big Ten in rushing yards the previous year with 1,099 total rushing yards, was expected to be a huge weapon. They opened up their season 4-0, beating Virginia Tech on the road and winning against a tough Washington team at home. However, the fun ended there, as they proceeded to lose their next four, losing to Nebraska by just one score. They went on to get absolutely mauled by Wisconsin, and after a bye week, they lost to UCLA by three points and went on to get smacked by USC (University of Southern California) the next week. They bounced back by winning two in a row against Minnesota and Maryland, and went home to face #16 Illinois in a game with massive stakes. Sitting at 5 wins, Rutgers needed a win to qualify for Bowl game eligibility. If not, they’d have to play at Michigan State on the road to qualify for a bowl game. The game was back and forth, and Rutgers managed to take the lead with 1:08 left to play. Illinois managed to drive far enough downfield to put itself in field goal range. With seconds left on the clock, Illinois attempted a 58-yard field goal. Rutgers decided to ice the kicker, who could not have missed more wide to the left. With fourteen seconds left, on a 4th and 13, Illinois Quarterback Luke Altmeyer completed a 40-yard pass to senior wide receiver Pat Bryant, who ran it in for an Illinois touchdown. Rutgers was able to beat Michigan State and qualify for the Rate Bowl; however, the team fell to Kansas State 44-41 after leading 41-29 in the fourth quarter.
Anybody who has been to the Rutgers campus knows it–the facilities are nothing special. Their football stadium is known for how underwhelming and dull it is. Their training facilities are lackluster, and, truth be told, are not the facilities of a Big Ten program. Rutgers as a whole was never designed to be a big program, and they have nobody to blame but themselves. Before becoming as big as they are, in 1976, Rutgers went undefeated with a perfect 11-0 record, but declined a bowl game invite. This was when Rutgers decided they wanted to go big time, pumping millions of dollars in an attempt to become one of the top football schools. This move certainly put Rutgers on the map, but basing this investment on an 11-0 record in an independent conference was Rutgers’ first mistake.
The next 25 years had no shortage of mediocrity. Jumping from coach to coach, Rutgers eventually went through their worst 5 year stretch in program history under head coach Terry Shea. Without a single winning season during his tenure, the team only won more than 3 games once during his tenure, when they went 5-6. In 2001, Shea was fired, and a young Greg Schiano took over. Schiano, who earned a reputation for recruiting at Miami and Penn State, had a formula that led to success for the Scarlet Knights. During his tenure, Schiano would find guys he believed had potential or were under-recruited, and spend time developing them into talent so that by their junior or senior year, he had experienced, talented players. This led to a magical 2006 season, in which the Scarlet Knights won their first 9 games, which included a win over No. 3 Louisville, a game known for the last-minute field goal from kicker Jeremy Ito. The game, which was later dubbed “Pandemonium in Piscataway”, led to Rutgers earning the No. 7 rank in the AP poll. Rutgers finished the season 11-2 and won their first bowl game over Kansas State 37-10 in the Texas Bowl.
The following years featured many ups and downs for Rutgers, and in 2011, Schiano left Rutgers and took a job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The program continued to struggle and disappoint, and in 2013, Rutgers played its first season in the Big 10 conference. Over the years, the continued disappointment led to the firing of HC Kyle Flood. In 2016, Chris Ash took over, who was no better, and in 2020, Greg Schiano returned to Rutgers after an 8-year hiatus.
Despite featuring talent like Isiah Pacheco and Kyle Mononagi, both now playing in the NFL with the Chiefs and Bears, Rutgers has struggled to keep players around. Schiano’s once successful formula of developing players over four years is no longer sustainable, especially with NIL taking over. No recruit has any reason to go to Rutgers, as the facilities are awful, and any player who becomes talented at Rutgers will only use it as leverage to transfer to a better program. Rutgers doesn’t do itself any favors by continuing to pour money into the program, that is, the little of it that they have. According to NJ.com, Rutgers’ athletic program deficit was 70 million in 2023-2024, after they pumped 178 million into the program. This is simply not sustainable, and if this continues, Rutgers will only find the deficit getting bigger and bigger. The fact is, Rutgers cannot spend as much as they do on a football team. They were never built to be a big-time program, and the longer they try, the more it will cost them.
