PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers saved its season with a couple of momentous plays on both sides of the ball in the final two minutes against Temple.
Embattled quarterback Gary Nova threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Leonte Carroo on a fourth-and-10 play with 35 seconds to go and Rutgers snapped a two-game losing streak with an improbable 23-20 victory.
The eight-play, 72-yard march with no timeouts came a little more than a minute after linebackers Kevin Snyder and Steve Longa stopped Kenneth Harper for a 1-yard loss on a fourth-and-1 at the Scarlet Knights 27 to give them one last chance.
“I had no doubt we were going to win the game once we got it back after our defense stopped them,” said Nova, who threw for 371 yards and three touchdowns in a week where his job was on the line because of poor play in the previous two games. “I knew we were going to go out and score or get a field goal and force overtime. We weren’t going to lose the game right there.”
Carroo, who had career highs of seven receptions for 147 yards, made sure Rutgers (5-3, 2-2 American Athletic Conference) won with his second 33-yard, fourth-down touchdown catch of the season and his second touchdown of the game.
There would have been no heroics had it not been for Snyder and Longa, who took advantage of a blitz change up called by coordinator Dave Cohen with just under 2:00 minutes to play. He had them rush up the gaps between the center and guard instead of going outside to stop Harper, who caught a touchdown and ran for another.
“This feels awesome,” said Longa, who had 12 tackles, the same as Snyder. “This is the things you work during the week for. We knew we put too much work in in the week. It was our game, we couldn’t go out without a W in our house.”
It marked the second straight week that Temple came up short in the fourth quarter. It was outscored 24-14 in a 59-49 loss to SMU last weekend.
The Owls came up 1 ½ yards short on the big fourth down.
“It hurt a lot, but we’re all learning from it,” said Owls true freshman quarterback P.J. Walker, the former Elizabeth High School product who threw two touchdowns and two interceptions in his return to New Jersey. “We’re taking it all in and making sure it never happens again next year or the next three games. We’ll learn from this and be prepared for the next time it happens.”