Rutgers is coming into this game off of a 7-6 season last year and they are going to have a new quarterback for this game. They are returning some key pieces at RB and WR but they have changed their starting quarterback this season to Athan Kaliakmanis. Athan Kaliakmanis is coming from Minnesota but he was not that great last season. He led a Minnesota offense that only averaged 20.9 points scored per game and he was not a very efficient passer either, completing just 53.1% of his passes, throwing 14 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Rutgers was not a very high scoring offense last season either, averaging 23.2 points scored per game. They had a much better defense to lean on last season and they were more of a ground game team as well, averaging 30 more yards on the ground than in the air in their games. Rutgers played 1 FCS team last season which was a 52-3 win over Wagner, but Wagner also finished last season 4-7 and had a losing record against FCS opponents. Other than that 1 game, the most Rutgers ever scored in a game last season was 36 points with their largest margin of victory being 29 points. They are going up against a Howard team that is also in the FCS, but Howard is a much stronger team that finished last season 6-6 and had a winning record against FCS opponents. Howard also played 2 FBS opponents last season and held their own in both games, losing by 10 points to Eastern Michigan and losing by just 3 points to Northwestern. Howard lost 6 games last season and other than a 48-7 loss to Harvard, 5 of their 6 losses were all within this spread and 4 of those 6 losses were within 1 score as well. Their offense was also very consistent last season as they scored at least 20 points in 9 of their 12 games and even in the 3 games they did not score 20 points in, they won 2 of those 3 games. Rutgers is not a pass heavy team and Athan Kaliakmanis is not going to light up this Howard defense. Rutgers will be lucky to even score 36 points in this game to cover that spread and even if they do, Howard is going to put up a good fight here and score some points themselves to keep this closer. Howard will cover the spread in this game.