Yo. Vinny here.
You want directions to how I'm feeling this week? Easy. Get on the Turnpike, go past Exit 8A, where the anxiety lives, and keep going till you hit Exit 9, which is right next to New Brunswick and is where I keep my joy. That's where I am right now. Exit 9. Windows down. Rutgers won.
I'm Vinny Scolari, born and raised off Exit 9, and I grade every Big Ten trench battle like an arm-wrestle on the boardwalk in Seaside. Some weeks we get pinned. This week, friends, we flipped the table.
Exit 9 never lies. Let's go.
Part 1: The Comeback in College Park
Rutgers 37, Maryland 30. Saturday, Oct. 17, at SECU Stadium.
I'm gonna tell you the first half honestly, because Jersey people tell it straight. It was rough. Maryland took a 7-0 lead on a 1-yard run. Dylan Lonergan answered with a 15-yard touchdown pass to KJ Duff. Then Maryland went up 14-7, and Lonergan hit Duff again, this time from nine yards. Good, right? Wrong. Maryland blocked the extra point, and Jamare Glasker returned it for two points the other way. So instead of 14-14, it was 16-13. Then Maryland scored again with 53 seconds left in the half. 23-13 at halftime.
I'll tell you where I was emotionally at halftime: Exit 7A. Somewhere around Great Adventure, and not on a fun ride.
And then the second half. Fuhgeddaboudit.
Dane Pizzaro kicked a 25-yard field goal. Lonergan threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Clay Thevenin. 23-23. Early in the fourth, Thevenin ran it in from seven yards out. Then Antwan Raymond punched one in from two with 4:03 left. Twenty-four straight points, friends. That's not a comeback. That's a full Jersey Shore summer packed into 30 minutes.
Maryland scored late, but we held on. 37-30.
The Arm-Wrestle Grades
Lonergan: 23 of 35 for 291 yards, three touchdowns, one interception. Grade: pinned 'em.
KJ Duff: nine catches, 113 yards, two touchdowns. Grade: arm-wrestled two guys at once and won both.
Clay Thevenin: 17 carries, 109 yards, a rushing touchdown and a receiving touchdown. Grade: he's the kind of guy who wins at the boardwalk and then wins the stuffed animal for your little cousin, too.
Dyzier Carter caught six passes for 88 yards. Sean Allison led us with eight tackles. We converted 9 of 14 third downs, outgained Maryland 442 to 378 and held the ball for 35:52. Up front, where the big fellas live, we won the arm-wrestle. Pinned it flat.
The Season So Far
Real talk: we're 2-4 and 1-2 in the Big Ten. We lost the opener to UMass, which I don't discuss in public, and then lost at Boston College by seven and to USC by seven. Indiana beat us 47-15. But we beat Howard and now Maryland, and Lonergan has 10 touchdown passes. KJ Duff has 741 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, which puts him on a very short list of the best receivers in the conference. This team's got fight. Ask Maryland. And coach Greg Schiano, who came back to Rutgers in 2020 for his second run here, has these guys playing like they've got somewhere to be. I like a team that's got somewhere to be. It's very Jersey.
Part 2: Off to Evanston
Saturday, Oct. 24, at noon Eastern, we go to Ryan Field to play No. 24 Northwestern. It's on Peacock.
I'll be respectful, 'cause my mother raised me right. Northwestern is 5-1 and ranked. Its quarterback, Aidan Chiles, has nine touchdown passes and no interceptions. Its red-zone offense scores 96.4% of the time, fourth in FBS. Its turnover margin is plus-7, eighth. That's a well-coached football team.
Now let me tell you about their Saturday.
Northwestern played Michigan State, which was 2-5 and 0-4 in the Big Ten coming into the week, and needed a blocked field goal and a 34-yard kick with two seconds left to win. The Spartans sacked Chiles five times. Northwestern's pass defense allows 230.5 yards a game, 100th in FBS. And we've got a quarterback who just threw for 291 and a receiver who's caught nine touchdown passes.
Also, and I say this with love, Northwestern's new stadium holds 35,000 people, the smallest in the Big Ten, and it opened three weeks late because of construction delays. Friends, I've sat in traffic on the Parkway longer than that. I'm from New Jersey. We don't do small. We do eight lanes and a toll.
Who to Watch
KJ Duff, receiver: 42 catches, 741 yards, nine touchdowns. Exit 9 never lies, and neither do this guy's numbers.
Dylan Lonergan, quarterback: 1,066 yards, 10 touchdowns, six interceptions. Needs to keep it clean against a defense that takes the ball away.
Antwan Raymond, running back: 498 yards and five touchdowns. Clay Thevenin: coming off 109 yards.
Chris Joines: 30 tackles, our leader. Sekou Kromah: two sacks.
Aidan Chiles, Northwestern quarterback: 1,398 yards, nine touchdowns, zero interceptions. We need to get one. Just one.
Griffin Wilde, Northwestern receiver: 30 catches, 482 yards.
The History
We lead the all-time series 4-2, according to our athletics site, and we won the last meeting, 24-7 at SHI Stadium in 2023. We held Northwestern to 12 rushing yards that day. Twelve. I'm still bringing it up at barbecues.
Turnpike Report: A Tale of Two Towns
New Brunswick and Piscataway. First, the big one. On Nov. 6, 1869, Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in the first college football game ever played. The first one. Every Saturday in America, every band, every tailgate, every fight song: that all starts here. Rutgers is the eighth-oldest college in the country, chartered in 1766 as Queen's College, and New Brunswick is called the Hub City for all its hospitals and medical schools. Johnson & Johnson's headquarters sits right where Rutgers held its first classes, at a spot called the Sign of the Red Lion. SHI Stadium, over in Piscataway, seats 52,454. That's more than 17,000 more seats than Northwestern's place, but who's counting? Me. I'm counting.
Evanston. Now, Evanston's a nice town. Right on Lake Michigan, 12 miles north of Chicago's Loop. Very smart people. Big journalism school. Very proud of all their Pulitzers.
But I gotta give you directions to Northwestern football history, Jersey-style. Get on the record book, go past the wins, keep going past the bowl games, and take the exit marked "most all-time losses in major college football history." According to Wikipedia, Northwestern reclaimed that record from Indiana in November 2025. Reclaimed. Like it was a family heirloom.
And the stadium. Thirty-five thousand seats. That's the smallest in the conference, and they did it on purpose, according to Wikipedia, to get rid of the nosebleed seats. Friends, at the Meadowlands, the nosebleeds are where the real fans live. That's where my uncle Sal sits. You take away Sal's seat, you're gonna hear about it, and you're gonna hear about it all the way from Exit 16W.
Final Exit
Here's my read. We're coming off our best half of football all year. We've got the best receiver on the field, a quarterback who's starting to cook and a 24-point second half on tape. Northwestern needed a last-second field goal to beat a team that's winless in the conference. Nobody expects us to go into Evanston and win. That's fine. Nobody expected Rutgers to invent college football, either.
Exit 9 never lies. Go RU!
My call: Northwestern Wildcats 38, Rutgers Scarlet Knights 20.