Rutgers football drops to 0-2 following blowout defeat
Teel suffers through another lackluster performance in 44-12 loss
BY DAN NEWMAN Sports Editor
Many of the Rutgers faithful may have thought the football team's season-opening 24-7 loss to Fresno State was merely an aberration. After the Scarlet Knights' most recent game, those on the bandwagon may want to think twice about riding on a vehicle with quickly deflating tires.

PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Above: North Carolina's Brandon Tate beats Rutgers' David Rowe for one of his four catches during his team's 44-12 victory over the Scarlet Knights on Sept. 11. Below: Tim Brown of Rutgers is tackled by North Carolina's Charles Brown.

Quarterback Mike Teel's three interceptions, combined with a porous defense, helped the University of North Carolina to an easy 44-12 win last week in front of a Rutgers Stadium crowd that had no problem voicing its displeasure throughout the night. Head coach Greg Schiano knows that this is not where he thought his team would be just two games into the season.

"At this point, everything needs to be assessed, all facets of our program," Schiano said. "Perhaps we need different people in there in certain situations. I do feel like we'll bounce back sooner than later, but right now we need to really look at things to see what we can do."

Among the only highlights of the game was the kicking of San San Te, who struggled mightily in the opener only to bounce back and nail his only two field goal attempts of the night, the first coming from 34 yards early in the first quarter to give the home team a 3-0 advantage. Ten straight points for the Tar Heels were on the board when Te's second field goal came in the second quarter to cut the UNC lead to 10-6.

What transpired over the next 15 minutes of play made most people either head to the exits very early or made them question why they paid much more than face value on StubHub to see this game, since all of Teel's interceptions were thrown in this span, one of which was returned for a touchdown by Bruce Carter. In all, the visiting team scored 28 points in this span to stake themselves to a 38-6 lead. Teel's backup, Jabu Lovelace, didn't fare much better in mop-up duty.

Following the game, it was apparent that things need to be changed. And in a hurry.

"I don't know if we need to go with different plays, or maybe have some more-effective ones involved in the game plan, but something has to be done," said wide receiver Kenny Britt, who caught eight passes for 109 yards. "Something's gotta give sooner or later."

Among the many apparent deficiencies from both games so far was the pass coverage, which routinely got beat on deep routes, including a 69-yard pass play from UNC quarterback T.J. Yates to Brandon Tate to make the score 17-6, starting the uprising from the boo birds.

"Plain and simple, we got outplayed tonight," senior defensive back Courtney Greene said. "We're an experienced group in the secondary, and so for us to get beat like that so many times, we need to fix these mistakes. We need to stand up as a whole and just do better. After the Fresno State game, we got after it and we had some very good practices. But we did have some communication breakdowns, and that can't happen. Any loss is going to hurt, but this one was bad."

Even with the loss, Schiano still says his squad isn't done yet.

"I'm not counting this team out. I think they'll bounce back," he said. "I know that the secondary can play better. I am surprised that we're 0-2. I thought we'd be 2- 0, but I do think that this team will turn things around and that we'll get this going in the right direction."

The Scarlet Knights' first chance to claim a win in 2008 comes on Saturday against Navy at 3:30 p.m.

NOTES: The crowd of 42,502 was the 12th straight sellout at Rutgers Stadium. In those games, the team's record is 7-5.

Even though Greene was a culprit on many of the big plays that were given up, he did finish with seven tackles, pushing him to seventh on the school's all-time list, with 314. Assuming that the senior All- American candidate stays healthy, he could finish as high as third on the alltime list by season's end.

The battle to replace Ray Rice just got more interesting. After gaining 94 yards in the Fresno State opener, running back Kordell Young was sidelined for the UNC game with a knee injury. Mason Robinson took over most of the responsibility, carrying the ball 16 times for 82 yards. Redshirt freshman Jourdan Brooks gained 42 yards on the ground.

Among the many to see first-time action was Colonia High School graduate Eric LeGrand.

Many in the crowd came to see the collegiate stars that were on display, but for those who had a seat down low on the Rutgers sideline near the 20-yard line, a few Sunday stars were also within view, including Justin Tuck, Reuben Droughns, Ahmad Bradshaw, and Brandon Jacobs of the Super Bowl champion New York.