PISCATAWAY - In the latter stages of his postgame press conference at Kansas on Sept. 15, Chris Ash fielded a question about the perception of his program.

This came less than 30 minutes after Rutgers lost by an unfathomable 41 points to the Jayhawks, who, four hours earlier, were viewed as the worst Power Five team in the country.

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"If I was worried about perception when I took this job, then I'm not in the right position," Ash said that afternoon at Memorial Stadium. "Right now, I love our fans, I really care about our fans, but I didn't come here with any false pretenses. I didn't come here with any promises that something was going to happen overnight.

"I'm not worried about perception. I'm worried about our players and building a program."

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Fair enough, but things have gotten worse. Rutgers got rolled on Saturday as a home underdog by Buffalo, 42-13. If the Scarlet Knights hadn't assumed the title of worst Power Five team in the country at Kansas, the Bulls surely took care of that.

People are angry. On message boards, on Twitter, in reporters' inboxes. They want Ash fired, everybody fired really. They want Art Sitkowski to have a seat, replaced by Gio Rescigno, or Johnathan Lewis, or even Jalen Chatman. Anybody but Sitkowski, who is four games in to his career, would seemingly satisfy the masses.

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Ash, or at least someone who has his ear, is paying attention to such matters. When the third-year head coach met the media Monday morning, he opened his press conference, unprovoked, by addressing the fan base.

"I would just like to send a message to the fans that we understand your frustration, we are just as frustrated," Ash said. "It is not the start that we wanted, it is not where we wanted to be. We're going to work really hard and continue to and improve, and build a program, just like the way we did when we started, but we do value our fans' support as we do continue to improve and build our program.

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"We are where we are right now today, but it's not where we will be as we continue to go and develop a lot of the players that we have in our program."

Ash was essentially asking for patience, but that isn't the strong suit of most major college football fan bases. That notion certainly applies at Rutgers, whose fans found an unreal high in 2006 with its vaunted 11-win team, and have been clamoring for something even remotely comparable ever since.

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Given who it has lost to the last two weeks, and the heart of the Big Ten schedule commencing Saturday with Indiana coming to town (noon, Big Ten Network), things are not likely to get better. The question now becomes, how much worse can things get? Based on the lack of booing during the Buffalo game, apathy already has set in. An announced attendance of 34,574 represented paying customers, not customers present. One liberal press box estimate at kickoff had the crowd at approximately 10,000.

Rutgers is a 17-point underdog to the Hoosiers, who are 3-1 with a competitive showing against Michigan State last weekend on the resume. Indiana won last season's meeting, 41-0.

Here is the grave truth. There may not be a winnable game left on the schedule. If Rutgers loses to Indiana, then Illinois on Oct. 6, the prospect of losing out will only get magnified.

"Yeah, it's always a concern," Ash said in regards to fan apathy. "When you're going through a tough situation, trying to build a program and turn things around, that is part of it because the perception for recruiting is important.



"You know, I think we do a great job of communicating our vision, our plan, and what the program — what we want the program to look like in the future to recruits. That's why I think in the last couple years we've signed some really outstanding players, and I think that's why we will in the future."

Staff Writer Josh Newman: jnewman@app.com; @Joshua_Newman