Rutgers football handed Maryland convincing losses in each of the last two seasons. Yet CBS Sports’ post-spring Big Ten power rankings place the Terrapins above the Scarlet Knights for 2026. Rutgers slots in at No. 16 of 18 teams, ahead of only Michigan State and Purdue, with Maryland at 15 and Wisconsin at 14, in a list published by writer Cody Nagel after spring practice closed across the conference.
The placement sits awkwardly against what actually returns to Piscataway. Two of the conference’s most productive offensive skill players are back, the defensive staff has been gutted and rebuilt from the coordinator down, and the 2026 schedule has been graded the fourth-easiest in the Big Ten. None of that shows up in the No. 16 slot.
The Number CBS Put on Rutgers and Why It Reads Off
CBS Sports posted its updated Big Ten ladder after spring ball wrapped across the conference. Ohio State sits at the top, USC and Penn State follow in the upper tier, Indiana climbs after winning the national title, and Purdue closes the list at 18. Michigan State takes the 17 slot. Rutgers occupies 16.
The two teams immediately above Rutgers both went 4-8 in 2025. Wisconsin fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo midseason and finished outside the bowl picture. Maryland lost head-to-head to Rutgers 35-20 in November, then watched leading receiver Tai Felton leave for the NFL Draft and saw its top running back enter the transfer portal.
Rutgers went 5-7 last fall and missed a bowl by one game. Five wins is not five wins on its own merits, though. The Scarlet Knights took road wins over Purdue and Maryland, played Illinois and Penn State to one-score finishes, and lost starting quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis to graduation. The arithmetic that puts Rutgers behind two 4-8 teams runs on reputation, not on points scored.
Two of the Big Ten’s most productive offensive weapons are back in Piscataway as Rutgers leading receiver KJ Duff and top running back Antwan Raymond return for another year. Still, it feels unlikely Boston College transfer quarterback Dylan Lonergan replicates the production Athan Kaliakmanis gave Rutgers, and the defense, which finished 117th nationally in scoring, remains a major concern.
That was Cody Nagel writing for CBS Sports in the post-spring rankings. The Lonergan assumption and the defensive number are doing most of the work in the placement.
Wisconsin and Maryland Get the Benefit of the Doubt
Set the three programs side by side and the order gets harder to defend on field results rather than program reputation.
| Team | 2025 Record | 2025 Head-to-Head | Returning Core | Coach Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 4-8 | Did not play Rutgers | Lost OC midseason | Luke Fickell, Year 4 |
| Maryland | 4-8 | Lost 35-20 to Rutgers | Lost top WR and RB | Mike Locksley, Year 8 |
| Rutgers | 5-7 | Beat Maryland | Duff, Raymond, four OL starters | Greg Schiano, Year 7 |
Wisconsin’s case is reputational. Luke Fickell’s Badgers carry two decades of brand equity from the Barry Alvarez and Paul Chryst eras, and offseason rankings often lag what the depth chart says. The 2025 Badgers collapsed late and the offense ranked outside the FBS top 100 in yards per play. Their spring did not move that needle in any visible way.
Maryland’s case is thinner. Felton caught 96 passes for 1,124 yards before the Vikings drafted him, and Locksley brought in a portal class graded in the bottom third of the Big Ten by every public rating service. The head-to-head against Rutgers tilted because Antwan Raymond ran for 165 yards and three scores while the Terrapins defense gave up over 200 yards on the ground.
Rutgers held more of its 2025 core through the spring window than either Wisconsin or Maryland. The roster math, in the most basic sense, does not match the order CBS published.
Duff and Raymond Carry Half the Scarlet Knights Offense
Few teams in the country lean on two skill players the way Rutgers leans on its returning pair. Both earned Phil Steele All-America recognition and Second Team All-Big Ten honors from the conference’s December release.
- 1,241 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns for Antwan Raymond on 244 carries in 2025
- 1,084 receiving yards on 60 catches for KJ Duff, second in the Big Ten and seventh nationally
- 1,466 all-purpose yards for Raymond, eighth-best single-season total in program history
- 241 yards on six receptions for Duff in a single road win over Purdue
That production accounted for more than half of the Scarlet Knights’ yards from scrimmage and more than half of their offensive touchdowns. Duff’s receiving total ranked second in the conference, third among Power Four conferences, and seventh nationally. The Maryland win in November showed the offense at its peak: Raymond ran for three scores, Duff caught five passes for 87 yards, and the offensive line did not allow a sack.
Offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca survived the staff turnover. The offensive line returns four starters. The slot and tight end rooms each add a transfer. What changes is the man taking the snaps. That is where Nagel’s argument gets stronger, and where the ranking starts to feel more honest.
The Quarterback Battle CBS Already Settled on Paper
Nagel’s blurb writes as though Dylan Lonergan is the starter. Spring practice did not put that on paper. Schiano and Ciarrocca have publicly said the job stays open through fall camp.
Lonergan went to Alabama as a four-star recruit and sat behind Jalen Milroe and Bryce Young for two seasons. He transferred to Boston College, won the starting job, and finished 2025 with a 2-10 team that ranked outside the FBS top 100 in offensive yards per play. The Eagles’ offensive line surrendered 33 sacks. None of that is the supporting cast he steps into at Rutgers, which returns four offensive line starters, the conference’s second-leading receiver, and a 1,200-yard rusher.
The other half of the room is sophomore AJ Surace. The Pennington, New Jersey native sat behind Kaliakmanis for two seasons inside Ciarrocca’s complex pro-style scheme. By Ciarrocca’s own description, that system historically takes quarterbacks multiple seasons to master, which gives Surace a continuity edge that does not show up on portal-tracking sites. Ciarrocca called him a hard worker after a productive winter, and the spring game split reps roughly evenly between the two.
Whichever quarterback wins, the production target is high. Kaliakmanis threw for 2,696 yards and 22 touchdowns in 2025. Closing the gap is realistic given the supporting cast. Surpassing it is the bar that gets Rutgers above its current ranking, and either passer can reasonably get there. That is the part Nagel’s blurb skips.
A Defensive Staff Rebuilt From the Coordinator Down
The 117th national finish in scoring defense triggered the most visible offseason change in the program. Schiano replaced his defensive coordinator and four position coaches inside a single hiring window.
- Travis Johansen, defensive coordinator, arriving from one season as South Dakota’s head coach and six prior as Coyotes DC, on a three-year contract starting at $1.3 million
- Dennis Dottin-Carter, defensive line, last with Minnesota under PJ Fleck
- Joe Woodley, outside linebackers, former Drake head coach and longtime Grand View head coach
- Devante Finney, cornerbacks, following Johansen from South Dakota
- Adam Cox, safeties, joining from Drake
The new staff is not a marquee assemblage of FBS coordinators-in-waiting. It is, however, a coherent unit with shared system roots, which matters more in year one of a rebuild than name recognition does. Three of the five worked together at South Dakota or Drake, shortening the install timeline that usually plagues full coordinator turnovers.
Johansen’s South Dakota defenses finished in the FCS top 25 in scoring four times across his six years calling plays. The Coyotes posted a top-five FCS scoring defense in 2022 and again in 2023. The jump from FCS to a Big Ten with USC and Michigan on the slate is real. The unit Johansen inherits, however, has more raw talent than anything he ran in Vermillion.
The roster overhaul reflects the same urgency. Schiano added FCS All-American cornerback Mikey Munn, who followed Finney from South Dakota, plus eight transfer-portal defensive linemen across two recruiting windows. The unit that ranked 117th in scoring last fall is almost a different unit by personnel before any scheme change kicks in.
The Schedule Sets a Friendlier Floor in Piscataway
The 2026 Rutgers football schedule was graded the fourth-easiest in the Big Ten by public strength-of-schedule projections. The Knights miss Ohio State, Oregon, and Washington. The toughest home matchup is Michigan on October 31, and the toughest road trip is at Penn State on November 21.
Three of the first four games are non-conference, including a manageable home opener, before USC visits Piscataway on September 19. The trip to Maryland on October 17 is the next direct test against a team CBS placed above the Scarlet Knights. Wisconsin comes to SHI Stadium on November 7.
Six wins and a bowl bid are realistic if the quarterback room produces at even 85 percent of last year’s level. Seven or eight wins land within range if the new defensive staff lifts the unit out of the bottom 20 percent nationally. The opening month decides which scenario the season chases. A 3-1 or 4-0 non-conference start is a reasonable expectation given the matchups, and the USC home game on September 19 is the early measure: a competitive loss keeps the bowl math alive, a win flips the season’s narrative outright.
If Lonergan or Surace stabilizes the position by that USC opener and the new defensive staff holds opening-month opponents below 25 points a game, the No. 16 slot will not survive Halloween. If neither happens, CBS Sports gets credit for calling the floor early.
