Rutgers Football: Screen Pass in End Zone Not a Good Idea

It's usually not a good habit to blame a loss on one play; I'll make an exception in the case of last night's Rutgers-USF game.

The Scarlet Knights played too hard and too well to have lost because some coach called a screen pass deep in their end zone that ended in a safety and two points for USF.  Rutgers lost by one point, 28-27.

In a seesaw battle where Rutgers had a 24-20 lead with less than three minutes left in the third quarter, they had the ball with a 3rd-and-21 from their own 4-yard line.  On a night where the defense rose to contain the Bulls on more than one occasion, the correct call would have been to run the ball and set up Teddy Dellaganna for as good a punt as he could produce.

To everyone's surprise, except the USF defensive line, Rutgers freshman quarterback Chas Dodd dropped back deep into the end zone and through a screen pass to Kordell Young.  Young was dropped four yards deep in the end zone for a safety.

A more experienced signal-caller might have realized the danger involved and thrown the ball away, but the Rutgers coaches should have known that Dodd was still a freshman and didn't have the wherewithal to make that decision.

I thought I saw the worst call of the season last Saturday when Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly had his backup quarterback throw a ball into the end zone that was intercepted and cost them the game.  The Irish were well in field goal range and had the opportunity to run the clock down and kick a short game-winning field goal—last night's Rutgers screen pass ranked right up there with Kelly's horrible decision.

In last night's game Chas Dodd completed 19-of-22 passes and avoided sack after sack by scrabbling within the pocket.  He did a good job and didn't deserve to be part of a safety that cost the team a needed victory.

The defense stepped up all night on key third-down plays, the offensive line played one of their best games of the season, and the Scarlet Knights had zero turnovers—they deserved to leave Tampa with a win last night.

This was Rutgers' second straight loss after the Army game where Eric LeGrand suffered his tragic accident and is still paralyzed from the neck down.  Rutgers is now 1-2 in the Big East and the chances of winning the conference are mighty slim.

With four games left and a 4-4 season record, Rutgers' chances to reach their sixth straight bowl game also become slim.  They'll need two wins in the next four games to achieve that and with four tough Big East games left, it may not happen.

There was no excuse for such a poor play-call last night.  For a team that has always been accused of being too conservative on offense, they chose the wrong time to change that philosophy.