Just as the Giants feature a three-headed running back team known as "Earth, Wind & Fire," Rutgers (5-5, 4-2 Big East) has used a variety of ball carriers to win four straight games entering Saturday's home tilt with Army (3-7) by using a variety of different ball carriers. The game will be shown on SNY at noon.
Four different back have rushed for more than 80 yards in a game this year, and both Young and redshirt freshman Jourdan Brooks have eclipsed the 100-yard plateau. Martinek piled up a career-high 98 yards in last week's 49-16 rout of South Florida.
"We have a great group of kids there," Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said. "They're unselfish. They just want to win and hopefully we can do the right thing by playing the right guy in the right time and the right play."
Although Young, a redshirt sophomore out of West Deptford, N.J., has started six of the team's 10 games, everyone has had a moment in the sun. After Young reinjured his surgically repaired left knee in the opener against Fresno State, Mason Robinson started against North Carolina and rushed for 82 yards in the loss.
Then the baton seemed have been passed to the powerful Brooks, a 6-1, 245-pound redshirt freshman who started the next three games against Navy, Morgan State and West Virginia. He piled up a career-high 134 yards in a narrow loss to Navy and has five touchdowns on the season. Brooks hasn't played much recently, but is listed behind Young on this week's depth chart.
"I think Jourdan's a rare breed," Young said. "He's a big back and real quick and real fast. He's got it all. He's got the whole package."
After sitting out four games, Young returned for the Cincinnati game and the team has won four of five since. He leads Rutgers with 514 yards rushing and is tied with Brooks with five touchdowns.
Yet last week against the Bulls, it was Martinek who saw the bulk of the action, rushing 21 times and getting two short-yardage touchdowns.
"It felt really good," said Martinek, the all-time leading rusher in New Jersey high school history. "It felt really good that the coaches had a lot of trust in me to run the ball, especially at the end of the game when we needed to run the clock out."
Schiano said Young will continue to be the main guy, but made no promises about who would get the bulk of the load this week. That, in turn, engenders a competition among the players.
"There's definitely a friendly competition," Young said. "We never know who's going to get the ball the most. We go into practice and everybody looks good out there. We're all doing the same thing; we're all just as productive out there. "If you see somebody else do something good, you want to do something good and you want to cheer them on."
With the team having resurrected its season to get to 5-5 after a 1-5 start, victories at home over Army and Louisville on Dec. 4 would propel the Scarlet Knights to their fourth straight bowl game.
"It's always exciting to go to a bowl," Young said. "It's always exciting, but you can't really look forward... Once you look forward you take your eyes off the prize and you don't' really accomplish anything."