Rutgers coach Greg Schiano courted a bit of controversy during his team’s season opener against Howard on Thursday night.
As the Scarlet Knights held a 38-7 lead with just seven seconds to go in the fourth quarter against the Bison, Schiano opted to go for a touchdown rather than just kneel it out and walk away with the home win.
Rutgers running back Antwan Raymond got the handoff and ran it in for the score, which gave the team a 44-7 victory in the end.
Well, that didn’t thrill Howard coach Larry Scott, who seemed to give Schiano a piece of his mind during the postgame huddle.
First career TD for Antwan Raymond #B1GFootball on @BigTenNetwork pic.twitter.com/8TzqwJcH03
— Rutgers On BTN (@RutgersOnBTN) August 30, 2024
7 seconds left and Rutgers runs it up the gut for another touchdown. Didn’t seem to sit well with Howard HC Larry Scott. Schiano leaned in… pic.twitter.com/3VKT7LlhwF
— FootballScoop (@FootballScoop) August 30, 2024
Look, it’s hard to say anything else than Rutgers was just trying to run up the score — even if they didn’t kick the PAT — which isn’t a great look in a season opener against an opponent you were expected to beat and had already lost by the time you snapped the ball.
“I think we’re both two competitive people,” Scott said postgame, per ESPN. “And in that situation, I would choose to handle it a little bit differently. I can’t speak for him. I have a lot of respect for Coach Schiano, what he’s done and what he’s been able to do. But we’re both competitive. And in that situation, you know, just a little bit of frustration came out because I thought it would have been handled differently. But he might as well.”
It makes sense for Scott to be a bit miffed at Schiano, who got the win but looked like a bad sport in the end for not just running out the clock.
“Guys practiced all training camp. They deserve to play,” Schiano said of the late score. “There was no running it up. If it was running it up, you don’t use timeouts when you have the ball. You let the game end. That wasn’t retaliatory. We were going to run plays. We bring a team in here to play us. We bring them here. We bring them in, we’ve got to win and we’ve got to get reps. And they were there, we took them.”
