— Sam Hellman
On the heels of a poor performance by the Rutgers offense in the first scrimmage of training camp, the Scarlet Knights returned to the practice fields early this morning to build upon the first scrimmage from Saturday. There were no major changes to the depth chart, but the Knights return to the practice later today for their first true two-a-day from camp.
Offense bites back
The Rutgers offense, embarrassed by a poor performance during the scrimmage, jumped back at the defense today with much more fluid performances in the passing and running games.
“Human nature got the best of the defense,” said head coach Greg Schiano. “There is such a fine line between performing the way you’re capable of and not and it takes every ounce to do your best. The minute you let up that much and the other side gives a little bit more, it was a good lesson.”
Schiano’s impressions after watching the tape from the scrimmage were similar to what the offensive struggles were all of last season — one guy away.
“We had so many one-guy mistakes that could have been big big plays from the first play on,” Schiano said. “The first play was a pass play and we were behind the corner by three yards, but you don’t see it when you snap the ball on the ground. That was kind of indicative of how things went. If you correct half of those, you’re going to have a productive day offensively. If you correct all of them, you’re going to have a great day offensively.
Some clarity at running back
It appears that a few contenders have dropped out of the running back race behind junior starter Joe Martinek. When asked about the running back shakedown after the first scrimmage, Schiano neglected to mention De’Antwan Williams and stated that Jawan Jamison appears behind and not as well conditioned as other backs after missing offseason activities.
“Right now it’s a juggling act,” Schiano said. “Joe has to get back in the mix. We don’t want to go too much on Kordell [Young]. Mason [Robinson] we want to make sure he gets some, but there’s not that many carries to go around.”
Of the true freshman trio, Casey Turner has the best shot to play right now with Jordan Thomas going down with an injury today and Jamison appearing behind.
“You have your proven running back that’s back in the lineup and that helps,” Schiano said. “You can see that Casey and Jordan both have some special abilities. Does that mean they’re really good running backs? Not yet, but they need repetitions. They have that potential.”
The running back race this year shapes up a lot like it did in 2008 in the wake of Ray Rice — between Young, Robinson, Martinek and Jourdan Brooks. There are some favorites, but there is a large contingent of guys vying for a small amount of plays.
“At some point, someone’s going to run away from everybody else hopefully and he gets the lion’s share or two guys do,” Schiano said.
Injury news
With the exception of backup safety Pat Kivlehan, who is day-to-day with a bruise, the Knights escaped their first scrimmage injury free.
In today’s practice however, Thomas left on a cart with an ankle or foot injury along with walk-on long-snapper Rob Horrel.
Milewski elevated to second team
There were no shakeups with the first team defense, but the second team linebacking corps got a makeover with true freshman David Milewski moving up to second team middle linebacker and senior Jim Dumont moving to the strong side. Marvin Booker was demoted to third team, though the change may be for a short time.
“I don’t know if Milewski will stay there after I watch this tape,” Schiano said. “It looked like he was a little bit left field, we’ll give him another practice to see if he can figure it out. Booker is coming off that knee and if Book can get himself going full-speed I think he’ll have a chance to compete.”
Waters gets praise
True freshman Lorenzo Waters threw his body around at safety during the scrimmage and was one of the young guys to draw praise from Schiano based on his performance.
“I think Waters showed that he’ll smack you,” Schiano said. “You could see he had skills, but you don’t know until you go live if that guy’s going to hit you.”
