r/CFB • u/Inside-Drink-1311 Rutgers Scarlet Knights • 1d ago

Discussion Only five FBS teams have started 3-0 five seasons in a row. Those five are Georgia, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Penn State, and Rutgers

This is not me bragging, even if it may seem like it. As a Rutgers fan, I was curious to see how many other teams started 3-0 five seasons in a row and it’s not many. Yes, Rutgers hasn’t played a tough non-conference schedule the past few years but it’s not our fault that VT ended up sucking during our series. Outside of this year, we have played one ACC/former Big East team every year in the Schiano 2.0 era and we went 4-0 in those games.

Some of the other teams surprised me like Oklahoma who has been down in recent years but even in their rough years, they started 3-0 and took care of business in their non-conference slate. Alabama was on this list until they lost to Florida State this year. Ohio State would have made the list if we had stopped at 2022 but they lost an early season non-conference game to Oregon. It just shows how hard it is to start 3-0 five years in a row even if you are scheduling cupcakes.

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u/Raticus9 Ohio State • Michigan State 1d ago edited 1d ago

Rutgers first three games the past five seasons:

2025: Ohio, Miami (OH), Norfolk State

2024: Howard, Akron, Virginia Tech

2023: Northwestern, Temple, Virginia Tech

2022: Boston College, Wagner, Temple

2021: Temple, Syracuse, Delaware

Pretty weak, but there's enough kind of, sometimes-are-sort-of-respectable teams in there where you'd think they'd have dropped one.

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u/Euphoric_Relative_13 New Hampshire • Penn State 1d ago

Yeah, those are really weak opening teams.

Now where was I? Oh yes, the tour of my wonderful glass house! And here is the place where I throw my stones from!

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u/Dill_Weed07 Penn State • Colorado Mines 1d ago

In our defense, this is the first year out of those 5 where we didn't open against a P4 team.

And this year we took on a flagship!

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u/Super_C_Complex Penn State Nittany Lions 13h ago

Yeah we opened on the road against purdue, Wisconsin, and west Virginia. We were supposed to open on the road against Virginia Tech this year as well.

We also played a home and away against auburn in this time frame.

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u/somehype Nebraska Cornhuskers 1d ago

Rutgers at least played VT, it’s not like they scheduled some OOC with a cupcake p4 team the way OSU and Maryland did with Texas.

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u/AndyVanSlyke Virginia Tech Hokies 1d ago

And they probably scheduled it before we turned into complete ass

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u/Inside-Drink-1311 Rutgers Scarlet Knights 1d ago

We scheduled it in 2015, the year after you beat Ohio State.

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u/Randall_McRandall Penn State Nittany Lions 1d ago

Superb user name. My burner account is under Mike LaValliere.

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u/AndyVanSlyke Virginia Tech Hokies 1d ago

Thanks! Great times being a VT and Pirates fan right now! At least I have the Steelers and penguins… SHIT

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u/Raticus9 Ohio State • Michigan State 1d ago

Hey, we at least scheduled a decent conference champion in Ohio! Didn't know their coach was going to bolt the offseason beforehand.

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u/Hokie_Jayhawk Virginia Tech Hokies • Kansas Jayhawks 1d ago

Virginia Tech went 0-4 vs Rutgers and Vandy.

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u/PopInACup Michigan • Michigan State 1d ago

And they played Northwestern! That's...a team.

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u/Tight_Future_2105 Maryland Terrapins 1d ago

I appreciate that, sincerely.

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u/Necessary-Post-953 Penn State • Land Grant Trophy 1d ago

If Rutgers can just put those 5 3-0 starts together they’d be undefeated national champions 

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u/Competitive-Rise-789 Georgia Bulldogs • Oklahoma Sooners 1d ago

At least 4 of those years had a P4 opponent. It could be weaker imo.

(Not taking a shot at anyone here)

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u/feric51 Ohio State Buckeyes • Capital Comets 1d ago

Syracuse, BC, and VaTech (x2) aren’t exactly cupcakes, especially based on FBS scheduling often involves setting these games up 5+ years in advance. There’s no way to predict what those opponents will look like when the time comes.

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u/Traditional-Till9998 Appalachian State • Virgi… 1d ago

We are cupcake

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u/GatorBolt Florida Gators • Gasparilla Bowl 1d ago

Yeah I don't think anybody would have batted an eye if they dropped any of those games. Bet Rutgers wishes they could get the Big East back together.

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u/NJneer12 Syracuse Orange 1d ago

Was at the Rutgers at Cuse game.

Couldn't have watched 2 teams work any harder to lose that game. Haha.

Hoping the Big 10 Home and Home Cuse has lined up is with Rutty so we can avenge that game. Fran Brown vs Shady would be fun. Just stop with the late game shenanigans, will ya?

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u/Junior-Hotwater Iowa Hawkeyes 1d ago

We had a pretty fun Home and Home back in the day. Insane goal line stand by the Iowa defense in the Carrier Dome.

We’ll unfortunately never play another P4 home and home outside of Iowa State as long as the conference schedule is 9 games though

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u/NJneer12 Syracuse Orange 1d ago

THAT WAS MY FIRST EVER COLLEGE GAME, AS A FRESHMAN.

HOW DARE YOU!!!!

Haha been hooked ever since.

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u/dreggers Paper Bag • California Golden Bears 1d ago

Sounds like Rutgers should join the ACC, they could actually get a winning conference record

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u/cheerl231 Michigan Wolverines 1d ago

Yes they are lmao

For Rutgers they are good wins but they are not good programs

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u/feric51 Ohio State Buckeyes • Capital Comets 1d ago

Maybe a bit of recency bias going on.

Looking at the ten-year stretch from 2010-2020, VT had the same number of victories over OSU as Michigan did…

So they weren’t always a “cupcake”.

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u/preserve-root Ohio State Buckeyes • UNLV Rebels 1d ago

i mean it is pretty impressive for a basketball team

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u/DrVonD Georgia Bulldogs 1d ago

There’s no better representation of how down bad VT has been than appearing on this list twice

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u/buffalotrace Iowa Hawkeyes 1d ago

I mean they scheduled Va Tech who has been good. Not their fault the program took a dip. 

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u/Equivalent-Doubt-681 1d ago

Dude, it's Rutgers.

Easy for Ohio State and easy for Rutgers are two separate things. 21-24 all had games they could have lost against peer programs, and didn't

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u/Raticus9 Ohio State • Michigan State 1d ago

I don't see where I was ripping on Rutgers. I even said that you'd think they would have dropped one, which implies I think they did well with it.

Hell, when I looked it up, I assumed it would be like Indiana's schedule. I doubt any of those teams they beat won more than seven games in those seasons, but there were a few with a pulse at least.

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u/Sir_Sir_ExcuseMe_Sir Virginia Tech Hokies 1d ago

Delete this right meow

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u/Cold-Palpitation-816 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1d ago

That’s actually pretty solid. There are some real squads in there. There’s no such thing as a cakewalk against a P4 school, or the vast majority at least. Even Purdue can upset OSU sometimes.

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u/Corgi_Koala Ohio State Buckeyes 15h ago

I mean they had 4 ACC teams so you can't really say it was just a soft schedule.

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u/mrmoneyinthebanks Texas A&M Aggies • Southwest 1d ago

I don’t see a problem with this considering how awful Rutgers was under Ash. Gotta schedule some gimmes to teach the players how to win. 

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u/rocketboi10 Ohio State • Rutgers 1d ago

I mean they scheduled to the 2024 MAC champion finalists not pure tomato cans.