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Monday, August 20, 2007

Some answers, some more questions

Looks like, with a little more than a week to go before Rutgers opens the season against Buffalo, most of the questions we had coming into camp have been answered.

We're pretty sure we know who's going to be lining up at center (Ryan Blaszczyk), right guard (Kevin Haslam) and fullback (Jack Corcoran). And today, we're just about certain we know who's going to be the starting tight end -- fifth-year senior Chris Rudanovic, who sat out last year after transferring from Indiana. Schiano announced that Rudanovic would be the starter and that all that needed to be worked out was who his main backups would be and who would be used in situations with multiple tight ends.

But the situation at middle linebacker got a little trickier today when Blair Bines broke his jaw in the morning practice during a kick return drill.

When reporters realized Bines wasn't on the field, we didn't think that meant any radical changes on the depth chart, since Damaso Munoz has been practicing as the first-team middle linebacker for a week. But Greg Schiano wouldn't commit to Munoz as the starter, and said there are several different possibilities, including moving Brandon Renkart back to the middle from the strong side, and giving Chris Quaye another look in the middle.

There's a story in tomorrow's Trentonian detailing the whole situation, so be sure to check that out. Tomorrow, there's certain to be more developments, and I'll post whatever comments Schiano has about the situation after practice.

A few other notes and quotes I couldn't fit in tomorrow's paper:

Jeremy Zuttah, one of the four Knights' captains who had a meeting with Schiano to discuss the need for imrpovement after Saturday's scrimmage, had this to say about improving: "I think there's a lot of room for improvement. We're trying to be the best we can be, and as soon as we start paying attention to the smaller details; when every single person on the team starts doing that, we'll get to that level." Mike Teel also emphasized attention to detail and said the Knights have to get better at the mental aspects of the game. There's more on that in tomorrow's paper as well.

Zuttah on the battle for playing time at right guard between Kevin Haslam and Anthony Davis: "Anthony, he's starting to pick it up right now. He's progressing and getting better every day. Haslam really has a grasp on the whole thing. Time will tell, but they're both fantastic players...."If (Davis) ends up passing (Haslam) he ends up passing him but Haslam's doing a really good job, so it doesn't really matter who's out there."

...

While Jack Corcoran seems to enjoy talking about his days as a state-championship wrestler at St. Joseph's High School in Atlantic City and Tiquan Underwood likes to chat about winning the state title in the triple jump at Notre Dame High School, Brandon Renkart wasn't too talkative about being a high school baseball star in Piscataway.

"There's not much to tell," he said, noting that he didn't remember exactly what his batting average was during his senior year, but that it was somewhere above .400.

I don't remember my high school batting average either, but that's because it was "somewhere below .200." I might have chosen to remember it if it were more like Renkart's.

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