Rutgers football training camp: Takeaways from Day 1

PISCATAWAY – Rutgers football was back on the practice field Monday for its first session of training camp, and this is going to be an important one for all position groups, but a couple in particular.

It all starts up front.

The Scarlet Knights have quality depth along the defensive and offensive lines, and the task for coach Greg Schiano and his staff will be trying to figure out how to deploy it.

“One of the hardest things about coaching is making sure you have the right 11 people on the field,” Schiano said. “Anybody can put 11 out there, but are they the right people for this package or that package or this scheme or that scheme? And that's going to be a challenge in camp, is figuring out exactly what each one of these guys does.”

Schiano was referencing his defensive line, but the same could be said for the other side of the ball.

The defensive line lost some key pieces in defensive ends Aaron Lewis and Wesley Bailey, as well as defensive tackle Kyonte Hamilton, a stalwart for the unit.

But the group returns several veterans including defensive end Jordan Thompson and defensive tackles Keshon Griffin and Zaire Angoy, among others. The Scarlet Knights in the offseason added ends Bradley Weaver and Eric O’Neill, as well as defensive tackles Doug Blue-Eli and Darold DeNgohe.

Rutgers does like to use a deep rotation to keep players fresh – that depth is going to be needed.

But figuring out the specific personnel groups and packages will be the task in camp.

The offensive line is clearer with players like Gus Zilinskas, Kobe Asamoah, tackle Taj White Dantae Chin, Tyler Needham, Bryan Felter, Emir Stinette and several others all back.

The most important task will be replacing left tackle Hollin Pierce, which won’t be easy.

How it all shakes out remains to be seen, but that’s what camp is for.

“I love training camp because it's the only time during the year that we have their entire attention,” Schiano said. “There's nothing else on the schedule except football. There's no girlfriends, there's no academics, there's nothing. And we practice or walk through or recover every single day. But we meet every day.”

Linebacker situation

Rutgers has to replace Tyreem Powell and Mohamed Toure at linebacker, but it returns Dariel Djabome and Moses Walker, the projected starters.

Beyond that is where things get iffy.

Abram Wright is coming back from an injury, and Rutgers recently welcomed back Austin Dean. It also has younger depth like Sam Robinson and DJ McClary.

“But I think that's what this training camp is for,” Schiano said. “Let's find out who are the guys, who's the third best, who's the fourth best, and then get them ready. And then how do you put them into different packages, third down packages. College football's turned into an 11 personnel game, but when people go bigger people, are we going to have another linebacker that can go on the field? All those questions have to be answered.”

Running back rotation

Another major player Rutgers needs to replace is running back Kyle Monangai.

To do that it’ll turn to a group that includes FAU transfer CJ Campbell, Antwan Raymond, Jashon Benjamin and Sam Brown.

It’s unclear at this point who the starter will be – or how exactly the Scarlet Knights will divide the carries.

But Schiano said everyone will get a fair chance to prove themselves in training camp.

“We'll rotate guys,” Schiano said. “We're going to give everybody as equitable a chance right behind the same line against the same defense. We're really going to be much like when you have a quarterback competition. Because we want to make sure that we're evaluating apples to apples.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Rutgers football training camp: Takeaways from Day 1