CINCINNATI — From the instant the Big East schedule came out, it was easy to point to Rutgers’ game against Cincinnati as a contest that could determine the conference title. The 22nd-ranked Scarlet Knights will face that test today with their best player injured, and in a place that has been their own personal house of horrors.
Running back Jawan Jamison has been hobbled with a right ankle injury, coach Kyle Flood upgrading his odds of playing from 50 to 75-percent on Thursday. The Scarlet Knights are playing in a stadium where they have suffered damaging loss after damaging loss, and against a Bearcat team vying for a fourth Big East title in five years.
“When you have a game in November with two teams that are at the top of the league, it has a definite feel to it, no doubt,’’ Flood said. “I think Cincinnati has been a really good program for a long time, and we feel like we’ve been a really good program for a long time now.
“When these two teams get together late in the year, there’s certainly some excitement to it. That doesn’t change your preparation … how we go about our business. But yeah, it does have that kind of feel to it.’’
In his first season replacing Greg Schiano, Flood has the Scarlet Knights (8-1, 4-0 Big East) on the verge of an accomplishment his predecessor never achieved: A league title. A victory today would set up a winner-take-all game at Louisville in the regular-season finale on Nov. 29, regardless of the outcome of Rutgers’ game against Pittsburgh next weekend.
But winning won’t be easy. Rutgers’ Big East-leading defense will be tested by the league’s top-scoring offense, one that hasn’t missed a beat since Brendon Kay replaced quarterback Munchie Legaux. The Scarlet Knights will be without right guard Andre Civil and placekicker Kyle Federico, and could be without their best offensive player.
Jamison, who ran for a career-high 200 yards in last year’s 20-3 victory over Cincinnati, and is just 47 yards from becoming Rutgers’ third 1,000-yard rusher since 1975 , isn’t 100 percent. That could put more of a burden on Savon Huggins, who has just 165 yards and faces a Bearcats (7-2, 3-1) team that is ranked 26th nationally against the run.
The Scarlet Knights have suffered some of their most damaging losses at Nippert Stadium, where they’re 1-6-1 all-time. In their most recent trip two years ago, a defense still dispirited by a paralyzing injury to teammate Eric LeGrand a month earlier allowed 661 yards in a 69-38 rout.
Two years before that, they suffered a 13-10 defeat, which snapped a seven-game winning streak. In Rutgers’ best season in recent memory, the Ray Rice-led 2006 team came into Nippert 9-0 and ranked seventh nationally, only to see Mike Teel toss four interceptions and its unbeaten mark dashed in a 30-11 defeat.
The Scarlet Knights haven’t won in Cincinnati since 1987. Even in 1992, when Doug Graber took his 5-3 team there fresh off a 50-49 comeback over Virginia Tech, a 26-24 loss cost them an Independence Bowl bid and set the program back years. Today they can make amends, and put themselves a win away from the Orange Bowl.