Earlier today, UCLA announced that Rutgers had backed out of a home-and-home football series for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Rutgers was scheduled to play the Bruins in Pasadena in 2020 and in Piscataway in 2021.
According to a report Thursday evening by NJ.com, Rutgers has already lined up a replacement for the canceled UCLA series. Rutgers will play a home-and-home series with the Syracuse Orange during those same seasons.
Per the report, Rutgers will host Syracuse at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey in 2020. The Scarlet Knights will then travel to face the Orange at the Carrier Dome in 2021.
Syracuse was available for the home-and-home series since they recently canceled a two-game set for 2020 and 2021 with Wisconsin.
Rutgers and Syracuse first met on the gridiron in 1914 and have played 43 times overall. Syracuse currently leads the series 30-12-1.
Update (7:23pm ET)
Rutgers and Syracuse have officially announced the 2020-21 series. The two schools will meet at Rutgers on Sept. 12, 2020 and at Syracuse on Sept. 11, 2021.
Syracuse also announced confirmed a couple of non-conference game dates that were already known. The Orange will host Holy Cross on Sept. 28, 2019 (was Aug. 31), Liberty on Oct. 17, 2020, and Albany on Sept. 4, 2021.
Football Schedules
So Rutgers cancels probably their one and only chance to ever play in the Rose Bowl…to play Syracuse. Someone decent, maybe I’d understand, but Syracuse???
Look for Rutgers to cancel the Virginia Tech series scheduled for 2023-2024 in the next 2-3 years if their fortunes do not improve. There is no reason to get hammered every year by a good Power 5 team out of conference , especially if you need to travel far. This will help with expenses too. They can just ride the bus to Syracuse and get more Syracuse fans in Piscataway than UCLA fans. Rutgers gets beat up enough each year playing in the Big Ten East.
Rutgers is showing signs of improvement… yet they still get beat at home by Eastern Michigan.
Great move by Rutgers. They will have a better shot to compete with Syracuse than they did UCLA. We need our B10 lightweights to model what the SEC lightweights do and enter their conference schedule with an unblemished record based on weak non-conference schedules. Not saying Rutgers is a slam dunk to beat Syracuse because they are not, but definitely a better shot to beat Syracuse than UCLA.