The greatest college football rivalry on the internet had the most fascinating result of this week’s games—you know, the famed Michigan-Rutgers rivalry.
In real life, Michigan-Rutgers is not a rivalry, because Michigan is very good at football and Rutgers is Rutgers. But on the internet, Rutgers fans HATE Michigan. Like, really, really hate them for pretty much no reason at all.
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Most of the hate stems from the fact that more high school players in New Jersey want to go to Michigan than Rutgers, because of course. Last year, four of the top 10 players in the state went to Michigan, including top-ranked recruit Rashan Gary, while only one went to Rutgers. Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh has made the state a recruiting priority, holding a satellite camp at football powerhouse Paramus Catholic and even giving a commencement speech there, so a weird group of Rutgers fans called “The Order of Bulls Blood” vandalized Paramus Catholic.
Perhaps most hilarious is that a Rutgers fan actually wrote this mid-summer, pubescent war cry:
THE ANGST! But thanks to this ridiculous banter, Harbaugh and Michigan decided to bash Rutgers into oblivion to the tune of a 78-0 win. That sounds bad, right? It was Rutgers’ worst loss since 1888, so yeah, pretty bad. But the score doesn’t do this game justice. Here’s a rundown of the craziness:
- Michigan finished with 600 total yards. Rutgers had 39. Michigan had twice as many points as Rutgers had yards. The Scarlet Knights actually had negative yards until garbage time.
- Rutgers did not get a single first down until the end of the game. It finished with two first downs to Michigan’s 23.
- Rutgers’ quarterbacks combined to go 2-for-18 for five yards. That is 0.3 yards per attempt. The Knights have the worst passing offense in the country, but at least usually average mover 15 times better than that, at 4.7 yards per attempt.
- Rutgers’ punter punted 16 times for 603 yards. He had more punting yards than Michigan had total yards.
- Jawuan Harris was the only Rutgers player to catch a pass. He was also the only Rutgers player to catch a pass in the previous week’s 58-0 loss to Ohio State.
- Rutgers finished the first half with six total yards. Even if all six of those were from one-yard rushing touchdowns, the Knights still would have been losing, 43-42.
- Harbaugh went for two when up 27-0, and Michigan converted. He also went for two when up four scores last year.
After the game, Rutgers fans were mad.
Except this guy who just wanted a hug.
Anyways, as we all expected, Rutgers is very bad. This will probably not convince any more high school football players in New Jersey to go to Rutgers. I look forward to seeing what The Order of Bulls Blood (side note: lol) has in store next.
