aron cruickshank

This weekend Michigan plays host to America's team, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, at Michigan Stadium. Rutgers rides into Ann Arbor with a sterling 3-0 record and playing more confident under Greg Schiano than their deadbeat years with Chris Ash at the helm. That said, this is still mostly the same Rutgers you know and remember so well and that will become evident as you read further on today's FFFF, looking at the offense. 

The Film: Rutgers has played one FCS team (Delaware) as well as Temple and Syracuse (so, three FCS teams *ba dum tss*). Syracuse is nominally a Power Five team (they went 1-10 last season) and were also Rutgers' only road game thus far, so they are the easy selection, the opponent that will tell us the most about who Rutgers really is out of a group of three teams that will collectively tell us little about who Rutgers really is. Scarlet Knights ain't played nobody, but Syracuse is closer to somebody than the other options, so we're going with the Orange here. Worth remembering that this is a bad, bad team. Syracuse, in addition to their horrendous record, finished in the bottom quartile of college football teams last season in offense, both in terms of points per game and yards per game. So there are many reasons to expect Michigan will fare better than the Orange did here. You can probably tell that by reading this piece. 

Personnel: Click for big

Rutgers is running Noah Vedral out there at QB, a returning starter who we will discuss extensively here. He comes off the field on 3rd/4th & short situations for Johnny Langan, a wildcat QB who is basically just out either to run it himself or give it off, usually with a read involved. At RB there's a three player rotation, the bigger and veteran Isaih Pacheco, the speedier and versatile Aaron Young, and then fresh-faced ingénue Kyle Monangai, who hadn't seen the field prior to this year but is starting to get more of a role. If Pacheco is out there, he's going to be in the backfield and carrying the football, as will Monangai. Young is used in more variable ways, sometimes lined up at WR, sometimes in the backfield, the recipient of screens and also involved in plenty of pre-snap motion. 

At WR, both of the top two options are smaller, slot-ish types because Rutgers runs a screen-based offense (the Training Wheels Offense). Those two players are Bo Melton and Aron Cruickshank, both of which are the recipient of frequent bubble screens and Cruickshank in particular features heavily as a jet sweep option, the one with more speed, speed which once landed him on a real P5 roster (Wisconsin). Shameen Jones is the most outside WR shaped object of note in the receiving corps, standing 6'2" and he has 7 catches on the year. Beyond those three, the drop-off in options is pretty steep. TE Jovani Haskins is the most credible receiver from the tight end position, while Brandon Sanders and Isaiah Washington constitute the 4th and 5th most relevant WR's. Those three names have 9 combined catches in three games. Rutgers hasn't thrown a ton of passes. 

The offensive line consists of LT Raiqwon O'Neal, LG Cedrice Paillant, C Nick Crimin, RG Reggie Sutton, and RT saw some of both Brendan Bordner and Hollin Pierce in this game. G/C Bryan Felter showed up in my notes as a reserve OL as well. Blocking TE Matt Alaimo also played quite a bit (was not targeted with a pass), and let's just say, he did not appear in my game notes for good reasons (more on that later). 

[AFTER THE JUMP: you get to see snippets of a painful game... click for PAIN]