Lonergan throws 4 interceptions as Rutgers opens with loss to UMass
Dylan Lonergan's first start ended with 4 turnovers and an undisclosed injury as UMass snapped a 16-game losing streak at Rutgers' expense, 37-21.
Lonergan's debut opened with a touchdown and ended on the bench
Dylan Lonergan got the debut everyone in Piscataway wanted for about a quarter. He hit KJ Duff for a touchdown to put Rutgers up 7-0, and RFootball's own account posted the throw with the caption "Dylan to Duff! Lonergan throws his first touchdown as a Scarlet Knight!" It was the last time all night the Scarlet Knights led anything.
Massachusetts21-37UMass scored 30 unanswered points from there, and Lonergan finished 16 of 29 for 242 yards and 2 touchdowns against 4 interceptions and a lost fumble, per ESPN. He didn't finish the game either — Greg Schiano said afterward that Lonergan was lifted in the 4th quarter with an undisclosed injury, with AJ Surace, the man he beat out for the job in August, closing it out at quarterback.
Dylan to Duff! Lonergan throws his first touchdown as a Scarlet Knight! 7-0 Scarlet Knights 🪓 t.co/1fLL6T1ZNV
Schiano didn't look for anywhere else to point the finger. "We got out-licked, outplayed and out-coached. There is no other way to say it. I didn't have them ready," he told reporters, per ESPN. Dave Portnoy, who'd bet big on the game, apologized to Rutgers fans afterward — Lonergan's first start is now a footnote to one of the sport's biggest upsets of the year.
Johansen's defense lasted less than 27 minutes before the alarm went off
Travis Johansen's first game as Rutgers' defensive coordinator was supposed to be the proof that eight months of rebuilding meant something. Instead, ESPN's Adam Rittenberg posted midway through the second quarter that "Rutgers has allowed 24 points, 12 first downs and 228 yards to UMass in less than 27 minutes," and it only got worse from there — UMass quarterback Pop Watson finished 18 of 22 for 197 yards and 3 touchdowns against a Rutgers defense that had 10 new faces on it.
This was the exact unit Schiano brought Johansen in to fix after Rutgers allowed 31.8 points a game a year ago under co-coordinators Robb Smith and Zach Sparber. Back in August he'd said "we'll be better on defense, I have no doubt in my mind" — one game in, that confidence is now the thing Johansen has to go make true, starting with a Boston College offense that just hung 34 points on Syracuse.
Rutgers is already the lone loser in a Big Ten that's 3-0 elsewhere
One week into the season, the Big Ten teams on Rutgers' own conference table are a combined 3-0 without them: Illinois, Minnesota and USC all opened 1-0, and the Scarlet Knights sit alone at 0-1. It's a single data point in September, but it's the only one anybody has right now, and it puts Rutgers behind before conference play has even started.
USC is the name worth watching on that list — the Trojans handled San José State 42-26 in their opener and arrive at SHI Stadium on September 19 off that result. Rutgers has 2 non-conference games to find itself before that one counts for anything in the Big Ten column.
Lonergan's redemption tour runs straight through the school that benched him
Rutgers gets a chance to answer this on September 11 at Boston College — a matchup that means more to Lonergan than most Week 2 games mean to anybody. Boston College is the program that benched him last season after he'd thrown for 2,025 yards, 12 touchdowns and 5 interceptions there; he transferred to Rutgers looking for a fresh start, and got one for exactly one quarter before Saturday came apart.
Boston College is 0-0 to open 2026 but closed last season with a 34-12 win at Syracuse, so this isn't a soft landing spot for a Rutgers team trying to answer 4 interceptions and a blown 7-0 lead. Whatever happens at Alumni Stadium, it will tell Rutgers fans a lot more about who this team actually is than the UMass score did.