Oct. 22, 2016

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

Rutgers Head Coach Chris Ash

Opening Statement

"I want to express how proud I am of our players. The effort that continue to put forth, the preparation that they had throughout the week. A lot of people have written this team off. They just keep coming to work, every single day. And we're getting better. They went out and took Minnesota's best punch at the start of the game, in that first quarter. Minnesota came out, had a good game plan, and started the game off fast. If you don't have good character kids, you fold in that situation. Especially with the losing streak that we've been on the last few games. But again, we've got great kids. They care. They want to do things right, they want to be successful, and they play so hard for each other. I can't say enough about this group of individuals. We'll get there. We're knocking on the door. We're getting better. It's about learning how to win, especially in a highly competitive football game on the road against a good, well-coached team. We had some turnovers again, special teams issues with the missed extra point, obviously the kick return for a touchdown. Just too many mistakes to win a football game in this league on the road. But our players are very resilient, and they'll stick together and play extremely hard. I feel for them. We're going to get better. We'll get over that hump. I don't know when it's going to be, but we will get over that hump. There's no quit in these guys. Their attitude is extremely high."

On QB Giovanni Rescigno's performance in his first career start

"A lot of heart. A lot of spirit. Made a lot of plays. It wasn't perfect. He had a missed read on the interception at the end of the first half. We wanted a fade to Carlton (Agudosi) where it was a fairly safe thrown. He saw something from the safety that took his eyes to a different read. That's due to some inexperience. He had a fumble, another interception into coverage in the second half. But I thought overall Gio played his heart out. For his first start, and not getting a lot of reps in practice even throughout the course of the year, to be able to go out and lead the offense to what I would consider our best performance of the year, our best balance of the year, obviously score a lot of points, most points in a Big Ten game so far, I'm really happy for that kid. I'm really excited about what he can do as we move forward.

-On the response in the second half

"We're in there at halftime, down 21-10 at half. We had just gone down the field, made a mistake at the end, but there was a lot of confidence in the locker room after that drive. A lot of it was because of Gio leading the offense. He could do some things that we haven't been able to do this year. Extend some plays with his feet, scramble. Some QB runs early in the game. It does a lot for your whole offense when you can do that.

On the Running Game

"Justin Goodwin ran exceptionally hard today. He did a nice job in protection also. He provided a good spark in the run game. Robert Martin got hurt in the last game against Illinois. He tried to practice this week, could not practice this week, and just couldn't go. He'll back though, it's not something that will keep him out hopefully for too long.

On Special Teams

"Well, it starts by kicking the ball better. We had the interception for the touchdown. We go out and miss the extra point. We had a lot of defensive players that were on the field that ran a lot on the interception return for a touchdown. We wanted to go sky with the kick. Have a short kick and hopefully force a fair catch because we had a lot of tired guys run down on that kick off."