South Florida came off their best performance and Rutgers came off their worst defensive performance. The result is in my opinion a inflated line. South Florida played what was an uncharacteristic game as BJ Daniels 13 of 16 vs. Cinci is impressive he still had 10 interception going into that game and although he threw for 286 yards and 0 INT he went up against 98th pass defense. Here he goes up against a similar defense that he has struggled against much of this season. Rutgers ranked 29th overall is 28th vs. the pass and 44th vs. the run and 25th overall in scoring defense. Daniels struggled big time a year ago with Steve Beauharnais spying him and I think he comes back down to earth.
On the other side Rutgers defense was bad, but the loss of DT Eric LeGrand who was paralyzed from the neck down in the Army game was tough to handle and they got beat by a Pitt team that was more physical than them. However, Pitt has a much better offense tha South Florida who is ranked 95th and couldn't score a touchdown at home vs. Syracuse or West Virginia and Daniels was awful. I think the time off has allowed Rutgers to heal mentally a little bit more and physically as their best player Mohammed Sanu looks more healthy and Joe Martinek (25 carries 125 yards last year) is also healthy going into this game. I do expect a very vanilla offense as their offensive line has been awful this year and with a true freshmen in Chris Dodd behind center expect lots of runs keeping this game as what it should be a low scoring defensive game giving Rutgers a shot at pulling it out in the end. Expect Daniels to throw one or two interceptions against an always opportunistic defense. Rutgers has always played well with extra preparation and I think South Florida is playing with too much confidence. Both teams have played good defenses all season and their offenses have struggled because of it. Believe it or not Rutgers passing game is a little better and South Florida's run game is a little better. In the end I trust the defense of Rutgers over South Florida and judging by the history of this match up you should too
