There’s one more tune-up on the horizon before Ohio State clashes with Michigan for the 121st time.
Rutgers
Scarlet Knights
The Buckeyes welcome Rutgers to the Shoe for a noon clash on Saturday. Coached by former Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano, the Scarlet Knights don’t present a major threat to Ryan Day’s squad on paper, especially given how their defense has faltered under their defensive-minded head coach. Rutgers is 107th nationally in scoring defense, allowing 30 points per game, and 122nd in total defense at 425.5 yards allowed per game.
In 10 meetings, Rutgers has never toppled Ohio State. It’s never come within two scores of doing so. Schiano is 0-4 against the Buckeyes since the start of his second head coaching tenure in Piscataway, New Jersey. OSU shouldn’t look past anybody, and hasn’t all year, but its Senior Day should bring another lamb to slaughter.
Battling for Bowl Eligibility
With an even 5-5 record on the season, Rutgers needs one more win to become bowl-eligible for a third consecutive season. Should the Scarlet Knights lose as heavy underdogs to the Buckeyes, the best their record can finish is 7-6, the exact same mark they posted in 2023 and 2024. Oh, how the other half lives, Buckeye fans.
The Scarlet Knights scraped by Ohio in a 34-31 ballgame to open their season, then crushed their other two nonconference foes of Miami (Ohio) and FCS Norfolk State. Any momentum there, albeit against inferior competition, unraveled as Big Ten play began.
Rutgers dropped four consecutive games to Iowa, Minnesota, Washington and Oregon, the last of those contests being a 56-10 whooping by the Ducks. Oregon nearly quadrupled the Scarlet Knights’ yardage in that game, outgaining them 750 to 202.
Two victories in the last three games have Rutgers within a win of a bowl game. The Scarlet Knights beat Maryland, 35-20, in their most recent game. It’s unlikely that win No. 6 for the Scarlet Knights comes on Saturday, so a postseason game for its seniors will likely come down to a home matchup with Penn State on Nov. 29.
Runnin’ Raymond
Running back Antwan Raymond presents easily the biggest threat on Rutgers’ roster. He’s emerged as one of the Big Ten’s best rushers this season.
Raymond is second in the conference for rushing yards, trailing only Nebraska’s Emmett Johnson, taking just 10 games to reach exactly 1,000 on the season. He averages five yards per carry and has posted 11 rushing touchdowns. He’s added 15 receptions for 163 yards and a score.
Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images.
Schiano has quietly put together a lineage of great running backs in his time at Rutgers. Isiah Pacheco rushed for 2,442 career yards (though never more than 800 in a season) before becoming a seventh-round NFL draft pick of the Kansas City Chiefs and becoming their featured running back for two Super Bowl victories. Kyle Monangai was a 1,200-yard rusher in both 2023 and 2024 who’s racked up 390 rushing yards at a clip of 5.2 per carry in his rookie year with the Chicago Bears.
Raymond put together a career day against Minnesota last week, carrying the football 41 (!) times for 240 yards and a touchdown.
Kaliak(manis) Attack
Rutgers complements Raymond’s efforts with a solid passing game quarterbacked by Athan Kaliakmanis, a fifth-year senior and former Golden Gopher who transferred to Piscataway in 2024 after his first year as a starter with Minnesota.
After completing less than 55% of his passes in each of his first three seasons seeing game action, Kaliakmanis is putting up by far his best numbers in his final collegiate season. He’s completing 62.3% of his passes and picking up 8.3 yards per attempt, both his best rates yet as a starter. He’s already up to a career-high 2,705 passing yards in 2025 as well, adding 17 touchdowns against seven interceptions.
Wide receiver KJ Duff is a major weapon to watch on the outside, collecting 53 receptions for 923 yards and six touchdowns thus far in 2025. Ian Strong and DT Sheffield round out a strong trio for Kaliakmanis at the receiver position. Strong has 48 catches for 716 yards and five touchdowns and Sheffield has 40 receptions for 532 yards and four scores this season.
The marriage of Rutgers’ run and pass games has given the Scarlet Knights the No. 39 total offense in college football, averaging 420.5 total yards per game.
The Worst Run Defense in the Country
Ohio State played the second-worst run defense in the Big Ten last week, UCLA. This week, it faces not just the worst run D in the conference, but in the country.
Rutgers allows 6.6 yards per carry this season. Let that number sit for a minute. That’s more than 13 yards every two times their opponent runs the ball. That’s a first down with some extra change to donate to your favorite charity.
More context for how bad that number is: It’s dead last out of the 136 teams in the FBS, and not by a slim margin. The second-worst run defense in the nation, Georgia Southern, allows 5.6 yards per carry. It’s a whole yard of difference from the Scarlet Knights to the next-worst team.
Rutgers’ front six is no better at rushing the passer, with a meager 10 sacks this season as a team, also last in the Big Ten and 132nd in the country. Ohio State’s offensive line got to build some confidence in a 222-yard rushing performance vs. UCLA, and the opportunity to output a similar number is golden against the Scarlet Knights.
The Cannon War
For 150 years, Rutgers and Princeton, which are separated by just 17 miles in New Jersey and are college football’s two oldest teams (they literally played the first-ever college football game against each other in 1869), have battled over two Revolutionary War cannons that are dug into Princeton’s university grounds.
The two cannons, nicknamed simply “Big Cannon” and “Little Cannon,” were left on the Tigers’ campus following the Battle of Princeton during the war in 1777, at least as the legend goes. Legends often embellish. There are reports to the contrary, but in any case, they are revolutionary war cannons.
Big Cannon was transported from Princeton to New Brunswick, near Rutgers, to bolster the city’s defenses during the War of 1812. Two decades later in 1836, a Princeton militia force named the “Princeton Blues” dug the cannon up from Rutgers grounds and hauled it back to Princeton’s campus. It was used to taunt Rutgers football players during that first-ever football game, which Rutgers won before going on a 33-game losing streak vs. the Tigers.
Six years later in 1875, a group of nine Rutgers students trekked out with a horse and buggy after midnight had fallen. They dug up Big Cannon, but it was too heavy for them to move anywhere, so they instead heisted Little Cannon and hauled it back to Piscataway on a seven-hour journey. Princeton students responded with a raid on Rutgers’ campus, stealing some muskets, before a committee met and decided that Little Cannon should be returned to Princeton. But 100 years later, one more heist would ensue.
In 1976, a group of five Rutgers students and one of their grandmothers created a fictitious New Jersey Citizens Bicentennial Committee (NJCBC), using the USA’s 200-year anniversary as a cover for their plot. They contacted a Princeton official and obtained a security pass for the campus. The grandmother posed as the chairman of this NJCBC, and it was enough cover to get their trucks and heavy equipment onto campus. Then they handed a letter to security guards stating that they were digging up Big Cannon to take on a statewide tour for the bicentennial and had obtained permission from University officials.
They would have gotten away with it if not for one lone Princeton University detective whose wife’s friend happened to be on the board of the real New Jersey State Bicentennial Commission (NJSBC). He reportedly walked up to the six robbers and told them, "All right, you guys, we know you're from Rutgers." The plans were ruined. Related charges were later dropped by police.
Rutgers and Princeton played 71 editions of their rivalry game, with the Tigers going 53-17-1, before it was discontinued after the 1980 season as Princeton dropped down a division to what is now the FCS. Scarlet Knight students still occasionally sneak onto Princeton’s campus and paint Big Cannon red as a reminder that it’s rightfully theirs. At least in their mind.
