In his first test as the new starting quarterback of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, Athan Kaliakmanis passed with flying colors.
The former Minnesota Golden Gopher who came to Rutgers in the off-season after entering the transfer portal, was impressive in engineering the Scarlet Knights for the first time in-game action, as Rutgers plowed past a game Howard Bison squad, 44-7 in Piscataway on Thursday night.
“I think he handled the offense well. He got himself out of trouble a couple of times. Those are the plays nobody notices,” Head Coach Greg Schiano said. “I thought his accuracy showed. I think he will get better and better as we get more into a flow.”
Kaliakmanis’ final line reads: 15-of-24 for 147 yards and three touchdowns. His longest pass of the day was a 34-yard swing pass to Samuel Brown V that resulted in a touchdown in the third quarter. He managed the game well, looked poised, and more importantly didn’t turn the ball over.
It helped that Kaliakmanis had the power running of Kyle Monangai behind him.
The Rutgers Captain, and reigning Big Ten leading rusher from 2023, picked up right where he left off in the Pinstripe Bowl eight months ago, gashing the Bison for 165 yards on 19 carries with a touchdown.
After a slow first quarter, Monangai turned on the jets in midway through the second quarter when he found a split in the Howard defense and sprinted down the sideline for a 39-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage.
Six plays later Kaliakmanis found receiver Dymere Miller in the flat on second and goal for the touchdown to push Rutgers out front 14-0.
The third quarter was all Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights outgained Howard 132 – 64 and held the Bison to three first downs in the period. Rutgers hit pay-dirt twice, once on a Monangai seven-yard scamper with 8:06 to go in the quarter. Later, Kaliakmanis connected with Brown down the sideline for a game-breaking, 34-yard touchdown pass to give Rutgers a 31-7 lead.
The victory cements Rutgers’ seventh consecutive season-opening victory. It also marked Rutgers’ sixth consecutive victory over Howard. Rutgers will host the Akron Zips on Saturday, September 7 at noon.
CONTROVERSY
What’s a football game without a little controversy? With Rutgers leading 38-7 in the waning seconds, the Scarlet Knights decided to keep playing rather than take a knee, culminating in Antwan Raymond’s 11-yard score as time expired.
According to reports Howard Head Coach Larry Scott took exception to Rutgers’ decision to score with the game well in hand.
Schiano briefly said in his postgame that there was no intention to run up the score.
“There was no running it up. If it was running it up, you don’t use timeouts when you have the ball. You let the game end,” he said. ” “That wasn’t retaliatory. We were going to run plays. We bring a team in here to play us…we’ve got to win and we’ve got to get reps. And they (reps) were there, we took them.”
