Rutgers is a bad, bad football team.
Last week they were blown out by Michigan, 78-0, and the week before they lost to Ohio State, 58-0. It got so bad for the Scarlet Knights that the official team Twitter account just stopped updating its followers after going down 14-0 to Michigan.
Ohio State and Michigan are the Big Ten’s two best teams, so there is no shame in losing both of those games. But losing by a 136-point margin over two weeks without mustering a single point is teetering on the brink of absurd.
Luckily for Rutgers, they had a much easier task ahead with a 1-4 Illinois squad coming to town. Unfortunately, the Scarlet Knights looked only marginally less hapless against the Illini as they did in their previous two contests.
https://twitter.com/barstooltweetss/status/787334972852043776
Once again, the Scarlet Knights found themselves being shutout heading into the fourth quarter. Dating back to Oct. 1, this was now 11 straight quarters without a score for coach Chris Ash’s team. If that sounds bad, it is. No FBS team had endured such a drought in the last decade.
The loneliest man in sports?
Rutgers just completed its 11th straight quarter without scoring, the longest drought in FBS in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/JaKTNT8uPA
— ESPN (@espn) October 15, 2016
The shot of the lonely Rutgers cannon operator summed up this team’s performance perfectly.
once again rutgers is out there getting 60 minutes of exercise and sunshine and you can't put a price on that
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) October 15, 2016
Illinois had only managed 17 points of their own, so the game was still technically in reach. And with 14:58 left in the game, the Scarlet Knights finally broke the seal on the end zone, with a jump pass no less.
Unconventional, but effective: check out this @RFootball TD pass from Giovanni Rescigno. https://t.co/e6hGffMfOI
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 15, 2016
For the first time since September 24, the Scarlet Knights had scored a point in a college football game.
Breaking news: Rutgers scores a TD, ending a TD drought of 177 minutes, 49 seconds over 4 games
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) October 15, 2016
Rutgers went on to lose the game 24-7 . But they went out there and tried, dammit, and they even managed to score. That’s gotta count for something, right?
