Joe Martinek ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns last Saturday at Maryland.
Joe Martinek hasn’t had time this season to check out the website that bears his name, but he planned to make some Wednesday night, thanks to Rutgers’ bye this week.
Joe Martinek ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns last Saturday at Maryland.
Joe Martinek hasn’t had time this season to check out the website that bears his name, but he planned to make some Wednesday night, thanks to Rutgers’ bye this week.
“I’ve got to do that when I get home,” he said following Wednesday's practice.
What Martinek will find is that the last update on Joemartinek.com was Sept. 9 — two days after the Knights’ opener against Cincinnati.
Since then, he has lost the starting tailback job, gained it back, had the first 100-yard game of his college career, topped that with a better one, and is now on pace for a 1,000-yard season.
All in a little under three weeks.
“It’s starting to feel like high school, having all these 100-yard games,” said Martinek, who has editorial control over the website but little else to do with it. “The thing is, I have to keep working and keep the momentum going.”
If it really is starting to feel like high school again for the third-year sophomore, that bodes well for Rutgers (3-1), which resumes playing a week from Saturday when Texas Southern visits.
Martinek, of course, is the state’s career rushing leader, having gone for 7.589 yards during a heralded career at Hopatcong High.
With Kordell Young slowed by an injury, Martinek entered the season as the co-starter at tailback with Jourdan Brooks. But after going for 121 yards against FIU and then for 147 and two touchdowns on 19 carries in last Saturday’s 34-13 victory over Maryland — rushing for 120 yards and both scores in the fourth quarter of a close game — Martinek appears to be a solid No. 1 at the position now.
“He’s running well,” Rutgers coach Greg Schiano said. “If he can string a few more of those together, (he) can lock it down.”
Martinek’s emergence as the Knights’ go-to back has come two games after Brooks appeared to edge ahead in the competition with 124 yards against Howard in the second game of the season.
Thanks to his consecutive 100-yard games, Martinek is Rutgers’ leading rusher with 360 yards on 67 carries, a 5.4-yard average. That suddenly puts him on a 1,000-yard pace.
Martinek’s breakout fourth quarter against Maryland — Rutgers was clinging to a 17-13 lead when the period began — included a career-long 61-yard run. That should quiet some of the naysayers about his big-play potential.
“I guess, but I’m confident in my ability, so whatever people say they say,” he said. “The bigger thing for me is that defenses have to respect me more and that could set up more things for me. It’s another thought in their head when it comes to me.”