In a normal year, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights would be seen as the bottom feeder in the Big Ten East. However, this is a different team. 

Rutgers (1-1) — under new head coach Greg Schiano — pulled off a season-opening win over Michigan State for their first win against a Big Ten opponent since 2017 before falling to Indiana in Week 2. With the Scarlet Knights’ relatively strong start to the season, Ohio State (2-0) head coach Ryan Day said that Rutgers has caught his eye due to their play at this point in the season. 

“When you watch them on both sides of the ball, they’re playing hard. [Schiano] brought in some different talent in there, and they’re playing with some energy, they’re playing tough,” Day said. “This week, we gotta make sure that we’re on top of our game. This team would want nothing more than to come in and get this game into the fourth quarter.” 

Schiano served as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator from 2016-19 and coached Ohio State defenses to two Big Ten titles, a Cotton Bowl title in 2017 and a Rose Bowl title in 2019. 

With Day arriving in Columbus in 2017, Schiano and Day served under Urban Meyer on the same coaching staff for two seasons. In the summer of 2018, Meyer was suspended for the first three games of the season, prompting Day to serve as interim head coach for those games. 

During those games, Day said he leaned heavily on Schiano and his experience as a head coach at both the college and professional level. 

“When everything went down that summer leading into taking over for those first three games and the preseason, he was a huge help to me,” Day said. “Just a great resource, really helped me in terms of just navigating through that preseason and those first games, so I’m forever in debt for him for that.”

Schiano said when Meyer told him that he was hiring Day to his coaching staff, he knew that it was going to be a good hire for the Buckeyes. 

“Ryan is a stand-up guy and an excellent coach. I actually knew that before he got there, but when Urban told me he was gonna hire him, I said, ‘Man, that’s gonna be a great hire,’ and sure enough, you could tell the day he got there that he was going to be a rising star,” Schiano said Monday. 

Along with Schiano, former Buckeye and transfer senior safety Brendon White has come into his own after leaving Columbus for Piscataway, New Jersey. 

In two games with the Scarlet Knights, White has been a force on the defense, collecting 17 tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery. 

Schiano said White has become an instant leader on the Knights’ defense.

“From the day he got here, he was a leader on our football team. He works extremely hard, he’s extremely focused on being the best player he can be,” Schiano said. “He’s an integral part of our program.” 

While the Scarlet Knight defense has been a pleasant surprise for Rutgers fans, ranking fifth in the Big Ten, the offense remains a question mark. 

Through two games, the Rutgers offense ranks dead last in the Big Ten in yards per game and eighth in points per game. 

The biggest problem lies in the passing game as senior quarterback Noah Vedral has struggled to pick up yardage. So far this season, Vedral has thrown for just 299 yards with three touchdowns and four interceptions.

Despite the Scarlet Knights’ offensive struggles, senior linebacker Pete Werner said the Buckeye defense cannot get complacent heading into this game.  

“We gotta stay on the right track, we gotta keep going and keep coming out like we did against Penn State,” Werner said. “We gotta keep that same energy.” 

Both teams were thrown off of their normal practice routines this week as a result of the Big Ten guidelines that gave student-athletes Tuesday off in order to vote in the election. 

Although Day said that it was a significant change, he recognized it was a challenge that every team in the conference.

“It’s the same for everybody across the board, we just have to handle it better than Rutgers,” Day said. “It is what it is, but we’re just gonna handle it hopefully better than our opponent.”