Penn State and Rutgers will look to become bowl eligible at the other’s expense on Saturday afternoon when the teams meet in Piscataway, N.J.Interim head coach Terry Smith was quite direct on Monday when addressing that very topic for the Nittany Lions (5-6, 2-6 Big Ten).”My focus right now is, obviously we have to beat Rutgers,” Smith said. “We approach these last couple weeks as do or die, playoff-type games, and this is another playoff game for us in our own reality of our world.”The Scarlet Knights (5-6, 2-6) find themselves in the same position, and head coach Greg Schiano wasn’t shy about addressing his “goals” on Tuesday.”Goals are a little overrated. My main appreciation of goals is that it forces people to create a plan, but other than that, the team on the other side will have the same goal that we do when the game kicks off,” he said. “They’d like to win and go to a bowl, we’d like to win and go to a bowl.”It’s all going to be about execution, it’s all gonna be about the preparation that we’ve put in this week, and what kind of execution it leads to this Saturday.”Rutgers will need to keep a keen eye on Kaytron Allen, who followed up a 181-yard, two-touchdown rushing performance in Penn State’s 28-10 victory over Michigan State on Nov. 15 with 160 yards and two scores in a 37-10 romp over Nebraska last Saturday.
