Rutgers’ running game was dominant in 2023. In fact, it was so dominant that Rutgers used it to make 90% of its offensive progress throughout the whole season. Now that percentage is a joke but it certainly felt that way watching the games last season.
The Running Situation
Rutgers had leaned on the run so much for plenty of reasons. The first and most prominent reason was the skillful running backs last season providing strong options to hand the ball off too. Kyle Monangai, Rutgers’ returning starter, led the Big Ten last year in rushing yards despite having fewer attempts than his second-place counterpart, Michigan’s Blake Corum. Rutgers fans will be looking for him not to skip a beat and have a repeat Big Ten rushing champ season.
Let’s say the coaches did not want to give Monangai all the attention. They had some solid backups to choose from. Samuel Brown and Ja’shon Benjamin provided Rutgers with some nice alternative options at running back. Brown finished with 216 yards on 63 carries and Benjamin had 172 yards on 45 carries. Both running backs averaged over 3.3 yards a play.
With that being said, running backs cannot create holes themselves, they need the big guys up front to do that for them. Rutgers will be returning four out of the five starters it had on its offensive line along with one previous starter who missed the entirety of last season due to injury. Rutgers had a sneaky good offensive line last year that did much better when run blocking than they did pass blocking. You don’t get the Big Ten’s leading rusher unless the guys up front can give him holes to run through.
That’s not to say that they were bad at pass blocking either as they gave up the least sacks in the Big Ten. Rutgers did have some of the lowest pass attempts out of any team in the Big Ten but still having the lowest sacks speaks for itself when it comes to the lineman.
Rutgers will be losing a big element in its running game, however. This loss comes in the form of losing strong running quarterback Gavin Wimsatt to the transfer portal. Gavin had his struggles as a passing quarterback, which is the major reason why he is now in the portal, but as a running quarterback, he was one of the strongest in the Power 5. He led Rutgers with eleven rushing touchdowns and had 497 yards on 131 carries for an average of 3.8 yards per carry. His departure will be felt on the running games stat line.
That’s not to say that incoming transfer and new starter Athan Kaliakmanis is a sitting duck in the pocket, however. He does have 234 yards on 108 attempts and three touchdowns under his belt during his two years at Minnesota, so he can move if he needs to. However, for the sake of the running game comparison here, it is unlikely that he will be able to or even have to match Wimsatt’s contributions in this department. Rutgers fans are hoping for the latter.
How it will compare in 2024
Other than the changing of the guard at quarterback there is not much reason to believe that any other elements of the running game will be drastically affected. With Rutgers returning many starters that were key to its own ground success, it is hard to say that the running game will be much different from where it was last year in terms of quality.
In terms of quantity of touches, however, that’s where it gets tricky. Rutgers supposed improvement in their passing offense this off-season could see the rushing offense lose some touches in the hopes of having a more balanced attack. This change could lead to Rutgers not having the same rankings in terms of rushing offense when compared to last year. However, if the quality is good enough, why not lean on the rush like last year?
