The Tailgate: Rutgers

The connections between Boston College and Rutgers football run deep. Two original members from the Big East's football playing days laid the foundation for a regional match-up, a competitive recruiting ground bred a rivalry for talent and now a complex and intertwined connection of coaches have brought the two programs from the ACC and the Big Ten into the spotlight for a Power Five, out-of-conference contest to begin the 2022 season; year three for both Jeff Hafley and Greg Schiano in their current tenures.

Schiano's arrival at Rutgers in 2001 helped forever change the fortunes of a program recognized as the downtrodden lower tier of the Big East. What once struggled to win consistent league games began to climb the ladder towards the top of the league, and the one college football program located within shouting distance of New York City catapulted itself into the hearts and minds of a new college football market. It blossomed into an 11-win program and transformed into an attractive expansion partner as the Big Ten welcomed with open arms the program whose coach went on to earn status as one of the National Football League's exclusive, 32 head coaches.

Schiano was the head coach and therefore earned the most recognition, but that era included a staff stocked with future coaching talent. Most of that talent left New Jersey with him when he moved to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and several now enjoy their own status at different levels of the game. One, Jeff Hafley, is now a head coach in his own right, and on Saturday, Hafley and Schiano meet in their first head-to-head matchup as part of the next chapter of an old Big East rivalry now capable of shaping the Northeast's college football tradition.

"I cannot say enough good things about [Schiano]," Hafley said. "Certainly as a football coach, [Rutgers] will be well prepared. They will play hard. It's going to be a fight…they'll be relentless. They'll tackle, and they'll play great defense. They'll play great special teams, and that doesn't take away from the offense. But Coach Schiano, when I think of him, that defense is going to be flying to the ball, and they're going to attack the football. They're going to be fundamentally sound, and they're going to pay attention to details and play [to] our hats."

This particular game is loaded with familiarity, and the bloodlines between the coaching staffs create the kind of deep-rooted rivalry that belongs in the annals of the BC-Rutgers matchup. Five in particular are with the Eagles, including Hafley, who connected with both of his coordinators through their shared links to Schiano's former locations.

Offensive coordinator John McNulty, for example, twice represented Rutgers as an offensive coordinator but met Hafley when he coached quarterbacks for Schiano's Tampa Bay team in 2013. Tem Lukabu was also on that staff, and they spent the season together in Florida while quarterbacks coach Steve Shimko was starting out as a Rutgers graduate assistant.

Shimko had played for the Scarlet Knights before hanging up his cleats, and his teams included Savon Huggins, a running back now coaching backs for Hafley. They were both part of recruiting classes that came out of the fertile grounds of New Jersey, where several other coaches plied their trade as high school coaches in the Garden State's circuit.

"Bob Fraser, I worked for him for three years," Hafley said, "and he is, in my opinion, one of the best coaches I've been around. Andy Aurich, I was with him for a long time, and he's a good coach and great person. Nunzio [Campanile] was a guy that I had a great relationship with when he was a high school coach, and he did a great job. He has an unbelievable family and is a good coach. Augie Hoffman played here [at BC], and he's another, that what he did as a high school coach was incredible."

All of those links add distinctive flavor to a matchup that dates back to the earliest days of college football. Rutgers and BC chartered the old Big East but split away from one another when the Eagles left for the ACC, and despite the Scarlet Knights later defecting to the Big Ten, this matchup still carries memories from those halcyon days.

They initially met as non-conference opponents in 2019 when BC traveled to Rutgers, but the 2022 version features teams in very different spots. Both are rebuilding, and it's almost poetic that the next chapter of their story features the first game of a season both hope represent their next phase.

It's a matchup that began more than a century ago, but here's what to watch for when Rutgers ships up to Boston for the first time in over a decade:

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Game Storylines (Tom Petty Edition)

(Writer's note: For all of the Springsteen references during preseason camp, the fact that I'm not choosing the E Street Band for this week's storylines is almost criminal. I guess I'd rather hold onto it for a game later in the year, so if I've disappointed anyone in any way, I apologize.)

People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow old
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream.
-You Don't Know How It Feels

Boston College has always driven that sleek recruiting machine over the Jersey state line (okay, fine, I gave myself a "Jungleland" reference just because I couldn't resist), so a game between the Eagles and Rutgers carries a hometown feel even after the surface level analysis between coaching staffs. There are, in particular, more than a dozen BC players who hail from New Jersey, and the constant flow of talent bred in the state's Catholic school surface makes this matchup a bit of a sibling rivalry for schools located in the Northeast.

"There's always a strong population of New Jersey guys at Boston College," said linebacker Vinny DePalma. "It's regional, and since high school football is great, it's kind of always the way it plays out. Naturally there are always going to be [recruits] that keep coming. I'm a North Jersey guy, but South Jersey has a lot of talent. The Big North gets a lot of the media attention with DePaul, Bergen Catholic and Don Bosco, but we have guys here [from the south]. Jalen Cheeks is a South Jersey guy. Donovan Ezeiruaku is a South Jersey recruit. Rutgers has South Jersey guys, so there's talent across the whole state."

That invasion of sorts cuts into the localized college football culture of Rutgers, which is only 40 miles from Times Square but very clearly retains Jersey-based characteristics capable of erasing the invisible line of demarcation between the northern and southern parts of the state. New Jersey itself is fertile, but it's the gateway state for the fertile recruiting grounds between New York and Pennsylvania. The pride that comes with that is obvious, and it's a standalone piece for players looking to go home with a meaningful, personal win.

"I know a lot of people on their staff," said defensive lineman Marcus Valdez. "Position coaches were either coaches at my high school [at Don Bosco] or at rival high schools, and I played against a couple of guys on their support staff. Obviously I know players from Bosco, so there are a lot of ties [with Rutgers]."

I'll stand my ground.
Won't be turned around.
And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down.
Gonna stand my ground.
And I won't back down.
-Won't Back Down

The question surrounding the status of Boston College's offensive line dogged the Eagles throughout the offseason and preseason training camp, but it's one of those impossible answers to discuss without a game against a different opponent. Since Saturday is the first opportunity at a public unveiling, it's only natural that watchful eyes turn to the battle in the trenches to see how this new line - devoid of a single starter from last year - performs against a Rutgers defensive front with equal parts inexperience.

"We have a set five," Jeff Hafley said, "and we have one or two guys if we think we can rotate it. I really like watching that group, and I like the way they work. None of them have never really played much, so it's going to be the first start for a lot of them and the first experience for a lot of them. It's going to be the first time they've all played together."

The context surrounding the line on Saturday is equally as key to its performance, and Rutgers enters the game with a defensive line lacking in game experience outside of Ifeanyi Maijeh and Mayan Ahanotu, two players who combined for 37 tackles and three combined sacks last season.

They are the only rising seniors in the group, though the rest of the personnel is anchored by Kyonte Hamilton's six feet, four inches and 270 pounds. In the second level, linebacker Deion Jennings played in all 13 games last but didn't register huge tackle numbers, though he's likely to be aided by the strong defensive backfield presence of Avery Young, Kessawn Abraham and Christian Izien.

"When you're playing against a system you haven't seen before, you have to go find [the scheme]," Hafley said. "For example, what is Rutgers watching right now? Are they watching Notre Dame or watching Rutgers film from years ago? Are they watching tape of the NFL and the Chargers or are they watching [offensive line coach Dave DeGuglelmo] and the running game?

"It's similar to what we're doing," he added, "because Rutgers has a new defensive coordinator who was coaching in Minnesota last year. I know Coach Schiano will be heavily involved in the defense, and [the scheme] is going to be similar, but there's definitely going to be some differences. So how much were we going to practice Minnesota looks versus Rutgers looks. Those are all things we had to sit down and talk about as a staff."

Say there ain't no sense in pretending.
Your eyes give you away.
Something inside you is feeling like I do.
We said all there is to say.
-Breakdown

Analysts spent a good portion of this preseason trying to determine John McNulty's impact on the new offensive scheme, but the first game of the season is always time for a greater conversation about the entire unit's development. There are key returning pieces, but seeing what adjustments or changes develop over the course of the season is almost more important, regardless if BC wins or loses.

"I mean, you have to be ready to play," Jeff Hafley said. "Week One for me, we just finished camp. Our fundamentals and technique, what we ran in camp, we need to run during these games. There are too many teams that beat themselves. They don't get lined up, and they go from 1st-and-10 to 1st-and-15 because of a false start. [A defense] jumps offsides and 1st-and-5 or a 3rd-and-2 becomes a 3rd-and-7. You have substitution errors where you have 12 guys on the field and you get a delay. A ball carrier gets hit, and they fumble the football. You don't know what you're going to get from a new offensive scheme or a new defensive scheme on the other side, so you just have to play with great fundamentals and technique."

Deciphering which team has that brand of advantage is difficult for Saturday because of the lack of returning experience, but neither team was truly penalized much in relation to one another anyway. BC's opponents committed one more penalty on average per game last season, but the 65 penalties committed by the Eagles was equal to the number of flags whistled on Rutgers. That's actually a disadvantage for BC since Rutgers played an extra game, but the difference in average penalty yards per game felt negligible.

"Even if guys are bouncing around in different packages or positions, they still have an understanding of [the scheme]," Vinny DePalma said. "It might be called a different name, but it's really all the same techniques. I think that's very important when you're building a defense because we're not just throwing stuff against the wall. Your identity comes from your techniques and your fundamentals, and [the coaches] have done a great job [building] where we play in different techniques and different packages."

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Question Box

Who plays quarterback for Rutgers?

Noah Vedral started each of Rutgers' 13 games last year. Evan Simon played in six games and went 16-for-28 passing for 145 yards on the season with a game-high 86 yards against Maryland in late November. Gavin Wimsatt is a four-star recruit who played three high school games before reclassifying into college, and he appeared in four games during what became his redshirt freshman season.

One of those three will play on Saturday, but don't go looking at Rutgers' depth chart for any hint: they each received the dreaded "OR" designation.

"Whoever they play, we'll probably find out right before kickoff," said Jeff Hafley. "We'll probably find out right before kickoff. [Rutgers] has three pretty good ones. Vedral has played a lot of football and seems like a great leader. He's tough, runs the offense really well, and he can run the ball and throw the ball. He took some shots and got right back up, and I think he's a really good player."

In response, BC worked on itself and focused its efforts inward, but it stands to reason that the open competition throws a bit of a swerve at those of us preparing paperwork along the way.

Can BC get Zay Flowers his touches?

How BC intends to get the ball into Zay Flowers' hands isn't as straightforward as simply throwing the ball downfield to No. 4, and his skills very easily translate to making defenders miss in open space. Getting him touches then means that John McNulty, Phil Jurkovec, and co. have an opportunity to run all kinds of misdirections that subsequently free up other options for the running game or other receivers.

"Their secondary is really good," Hafley said. "I think they have all four [defensive backs] back, and the two safeties, I think, are really talented guys. [Christian Izien] plays with his hair on fire, and I think he's a tough kid who reads the run well when it comes downhill. [Avery Young] is the other safety, and he's very tough, very athletic. I think he played corner at one time."

How complex can BC play on defense?

BC is in its third season under defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu, and the combination of coaching experience and overall game numbers among personnel means the unit likely flies out of the gate with a few new wrinkles designed to confuse opposing offenses.

"We built a really close culture," Vinny DePalma said. "Guys are all different ages and come from different places, but guys want to work with each other. Guys want to succeed, regardless of who's in the game, and guys want everyone to go out and play the best that they can. Everyone's always trying to help each other out, watching film together, and that continuity is important. When you get on the field, you look ready to trust [others], and that allows you to play faster."

Complexity can mean a few different things, and with the number of hybrid players on the depth chart, BC has options for coverages and reads in different formations. The actual zone or man assignments might not change, but expect BC to roll out different alignments with three-down or four-down linemen, multiple linebackers, and four, five or even six defensive backs.

How many text messages have BC's Jersey guys received?

Marcus Valdez was part of BC's program when it played at Rutgers in 2019, and he didn't think he would ever play for the Eagles long enough to see the Scarlet Knights play their return trip this season. Enter COVID-19 and the free year of eligibility, and the sixth-year Valdez is now welcoming friends and family to Chestnut Hill along with a number of his BC teammates from New Jersey.

"I was joking with one of my friends that's older than me," Valdez said. "I think my brother was at Rutgers when I first came to BC, and he marked down the schedule that in 2019, BC was going to Rutgers. We played that, but looking at the home-and-home, I was thinking there was no way I was going to make it [to this year]. Five years later, COVID came and it's coming full circle. My parents will be here, and my brother is flying in from California. All my uncles that took me to tailgates are coming up that week. So a lot of family will be here, not as much as if we were playing there but I grew up watching [Rutgers]. It was the hometown team."

"Week one's super exciting regardless," Vinny DePalma said. "I'm certainly a proponent for North Jersey football. I think it's the best football in the country, and Rutgers is going to compete their tails off. What the state is all about, we're Jersey guys, and it's the same mentality there of guys who are tough and want to compete."

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Meteorology 101

I opened my windows this week for the first time in what felt like forever, but man, did it feel great to get those breezes back into my sleep patterns. New England has one of the strangest climates in the nation because we experience all four seasons, but this summer felt especially hot compared to years past.

Saturday's the first game of the year, so I'm anticipating some heat for a noontime kickoff even if there's a relative lack of humidity compared to the disgusting, 90-degree soup that lined July and August. I'll bet on the shaded areas of Alumni Stadium feeling gorgeous, but the good folks sitting closer to Fish Field House should probably pack an extra tube of sunscreen.

The good news is that this might be the only game where fans have to drink a couple of extra bottles of water. The Maine game in two weeks is under the lights at 7:30 p.m., and by the time the third game rolls around, October's pumpkin season will be in full swing… even if discussing October causes me to break out in hives over the impending birth of my second daughter.

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BC-Rutgers X Factor

Boston College's offensive line

Yeah, yeah, I know, this is low hanging fruit for the first game of the season, but given all the talk about BC's offensive line, there's really only one logical selection for the key piece of this week's opening game. All of the proof given in practice has shown how the offensive line is going to be okay, but it's impossible to truly know how the unit is going to perform when it's facing a scheme and depth chart that isn't wearing the same uniform. So even I have to grudgingly admit that there's some special attention that almost everyone is going to give the offensive line on Saturday.

I also know that it's impossible to gauge an entire season based on the first game, so no matter what happens against Rutgers, the performance is still only the starting point for where BC wants to go this year. If someone makes a mistake, it doesn't mean they need to be pulled from the lineup. What matters most is instead to put together a worthy performance, which can translate into the next phase of the unit's development.

"The best thing I like about [the offensive line]," said Jeff Hafley, "is that it keeps getting better, and that, to me, is the key. Is it going to look perfect on Saturday with that group? No, it's not, and that's okay. It needs to look better next week, and it needs to look better in October. It needs to look better in November."

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Around College Football

I don't know exactly when it occurred, but having marquee games during the first week of college football has been a Labor Day Weekend revelation. Thursday night brought the return of the Backyard Brawl when West Virginia visited Pittsburgh for the first time since realignment separated the two schools in 2011, and Penn State-Purdue continued the party later at night as the Big Ten continued conference play that began with Nebraska-Northwestern during last week's Week Zero event.

It serves as the precursor to an incredible weekend of college football. Illinois-Indiana continues Big Ten conference play right around the time Temple is kicking off at Duke on Friday night, and a full slate of games on Saturday brings College GameDay back to Columbus, Ohio for Marcus Freeman's Notre Dame head coaching debut at Ohio State.

There's a sheer volume of games worth watching. No. 13 NC State is at East Carolina at noon opposite BC's game against Rutgers, and the mid-afternoon features No. 11 Oregon's matchup at No. 3 Georgia and No. 23 Cincinnati's trip to No. 19 Arkansas. Later, No. 7 Utah heads to Florida, though the marquee game is clearly the No. 5 Fighting Irish's trip to the Horseshoe.

Those of us looking down the ballot can find some really interesting matchups like Army-at-Coastal Carolina after both teams won at least nine games and finished the season with bowl victories, and I'm especially looking forward to South Dakota's trip to Kansas State since the Coyotes nearly defeated Kansas last year and face a Wildcat team that struggled at times with FCS-No. 8 Southern Illinois.

On the ACC radar, the Pitt and Wake Forest games kicked off the weekend on Thursday night, and Virginia Tech heads to Old Dominion for an in-state matchup on Friday night opposite Duke's game against Temple. When Saturday rolls around, the BC-Rutgers game starts opposite NC State, and North Carolina is in the Blue Ridge Mountains to take on Appalachian State. Primetime features the first league game of the year when Syracuse hosts Louisville at the newly-named JMA Wireless Dome. Miami and Virginia, meanwhile, play FCS opponents when the Hurricanes host Bethune-Cookman and the Cavaliers play Richmond.

Locally, UConn is at home against Central Connecticut State while the Don Brown era kicks off at UMass as the Minutemen play in New Orleans, against Tulane, and FCS level teams started as early as Thursday with Rhode Island and Bryant kicking off their respective seasons.

*****
Dan's Random Observation of the Week

Growing up in Boston meant the MBTA played an integral piece of most childhood memories. I used to ride into town on the Orange Line, and it's easy to recall memories of landing in North Station for a Bruins or Celtics game while also remembering the switch to the Green Line got us out to Kenmore for the Sox. I also can't forget the time my dad forgot to buy return tokens for a Boston College game, a story that was a lot more frantic in the days before cell phones or electronic ticketing.

The thrill of riding those trains was a very big deal to my childhood, so the recent pratfalls and failures of the train system in Boston have been particularly painful. I'm not going to sit around and talk about the subway as this great source of pride, but recent months produced a stream of catastrophes and tragedies, one after another. It's a complete mess, and the opening of new stops did almost nothing to stem the tide of bad headlines.

It's impossible to sugarcoat for even the most ardent or hearty Bostonian, but I'll admit how I'm optimistic that the shutdown of the Orange Line that started on August 19 is going to fix some of those issues. It lasts until the middle of September and is a colossal headache for the cities and towns along its routes, but I'm confident that the long term might actually improve the future state. Maybe I'm crazy here, but I do think that's a real concept given the pressure and spotlight currently shining on the project.

None of this likely matters to anyone traveling to Saturday's game, but it's worth being aware of the interruptions causing potential issues to a commute. I used to ride the Orange Line and Green Line trolleys out to BC on game day, and even though that makes me sound like my grandfather, I'd like to assume someone out there is still doing it.

In any event, just be aware of traffic and possible obstructions on the commute on Saturday, and check the reports early and often.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey. -Jon Bon Jovi

Rutgers didn't have many storied rivalries during the early Big East days because it failed to defeat opponents with any regularity, but the 1991 Scarlet Knights beat BC in both schools' first game contested under the Big East banner, 20-13. They finished that season with an over-.500 record, though it's hard to crown a league champion since the conference round robin didn't start until 1993. By then, Rutgers had slid to the bottom three of the Big East, and with the exception of a 7-7 tie in 1994, the Eagles never lost again in a conference game to the Scarlet Knights.

Their 2019 renewed the game, but any semblance of the rivalry fell right in line when BC bulldozed Rutgers with a 30-16 matchup. AJ Dillon ran 32 times for 150 yards, and David Bailey's 12 carries for 82 yards came as the offensive line ran zone trap after zone trap into the teeth of the defensive front.

BC eventually piled up 436 yards of total offense against the Scarlet Knights, who tried to rally behind quarterback Artur Sitkowski's 304 yards passing, but the end result was another loss for the New Jersey-based team. At the end of the season, the school decided to move in a different direction, and the return of Greg Schiano trumpeted the start of a new-old era.

That was the same offseason where Jeff Hafley came to Boston College, and three years later, the two friends and former coworkers plan to write the next chapter of an old Northeast matchup. This is a Jersey street fight kind of game, and it's the best possible way to start the 2022 season.

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