Rutgers Football: A Statistical Breakdown of the Washington State Game

The morning after such a loss as yesterday's, leaves a lot of questions and lingering frustrations.  We all were either at the game or watched it on television and know what we saw.  If you want to know Ray Ransom's insighful thoughts on what happened, click here. However, in reviewing the statistics from yesterday's game, it allows for a deeper understanding into what went right and what went wrong.  There are some positive takeaways and some painful ones as well.  Let's review and break down the statistics in a good, bad and ugly format.  Buckle up.

The Good

• The offense totaled over 400 yards for the second consecutive game this season and has now done so four of the past five games the program has played, dating back to last season.
• The defense had 11 pass break-ups yesterday, led by Anthony Cioffi who had three.  Kiy Hester and Davon Jacobs each had two.
• The offensive line only allowed one sack. 
  
• The offense scored on all three trips to the red zone yesterday (2 TD's & 1 FG) and are now 8-8 for the season.
• The team averaged 5.4 yards a carry on 37 attempts for 198 rushing yards.
• The offense was 5-10 on third down conversions and 1-1 on fourth down conversions.
• Steve Longa made 14 tackles tying a career high, 12 of which were solo and a new career high.  He has tied or led the team in tackles in 19 of his 28 career games.  It was his 10th game of at least 10 tackles in his career.
• Joey Roth averaged 49 yards on three punt attempts.
• Chris Laviano completed 23 of 29 passes for a 79% completion percentage.  He also completed passes to 10 different receivers.
• The Tight Ends combined for 8 catches and 67 yards.
• Josh Hicks and Robert Martin combined for 157 yards rushing on 25 attempts for a 6.3 yards per carry average.
• Kyle Federico was 2-2 in field goal attempts, hitting from 37 yards and 48 yards.
• Janarion Grant set a school record with 337 all-purpose yards. He had 195 kickoff return yards, 56 punt return yards, 65 receiving yards and 21 rushing yards.  The previous record of 326 yards was held by Terrell Willis.
• Grant is the first Rutgers player in the modern era to return both a kickoff and punt for a touchdown in the same game.

The Bad

• The defense allowed Washington State to average 5.1 yards per carry. 
  
• The defense allowed 478 yards passing and 559 total yards of offense.
• Rutgers lost the turnover battle 3-0. Chris Laviano had an interception and a fumble. His fumble was on the opening drive of the 2nd half with Rutgers on the Washington State 28 yard line.  After the turnover, Washington State scored a TD to take a 20-6 lead. Josh Hicks fumbled after a reception in the 4th quarter on the Washington State 31 yard line with Rutgers down 30-27.
  
• Washington State scored 10 points off the Rutgers turnovers.
• The defense allowed 4 scores in 5 red zone chances, including 3 touchdowns.
• The defense only managed one sack.  Sebastian Joseph and Quanzell Lambert were each credited with half a sack on the play.
• The defense only managed 4 quarterback hurries all game.  Kemoko Turay did have three of them.
• The defense forced zero turnovers.
• Leonte Carroo was only targeted 6 times yesterday, resulting in 4 catches for 52 yards.
• Andre Patton was only targeted 1 time yesterday, resulting in 1 catch for 4 yards.
• Paul James managed only 26 yards on 6 rushing attempts.  It did seem he was injured on a pass play from Laviano in the 1st half.
• Chris Laviano averaged only 7.0 yards per pass attempt.  Last year, Gary Nova was third in the Big Ten with 8.3 yards per pass attempt average.

The Ugly

• Rutgers committed 11 penalties for 100 yards.
• Two of the penalties were chop blocks called against offensive lineman JJ Denman and Derrick Nelson.
• Rutgers had two touchdowns negated due to penalties, both in the 4th quarter with less than 10 minutes to play.  The first was a 10 yard holding call on Chris Muller that negated a 21 yard rushing score by Josh Hicks.  The second was a 15 yard pass interference call on Justin Goodwin, negating a 29 yard touchdown catch and run by who else, Janarion Grant.
  
• Rutgers burned their last timeout of the game with 12 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter.  Flood called the last timeout due to 12 men on the field during a field goal attempt.  It appears the player would have made it off the field in time. 
  
• A few thousand Rutgers fans left the game in the 4th quarter when the rain picked up. 
  
• Chris Laviano reportedly left the locker room with a significant limp.