The phrase "scruffy appearance" means someone or something looks messy, untidy, or unkempt, with uncombed hair, wrinkled clothes, or overall disheveled look. Full definition
Except for a video showing someone modeling sneakers underwater, from the ankles down, the works in this enjoyably mystifying show have a decidedly scruffy appearance. (nytimes.com)
He gets to ditch his ultra-religious background when he goes to work at a university newspaper some six years later and, despite (or perhaps because of) his scruffy appearance, he finds himself attractive to girls. (rottentomatoes.com)
The film focuses on the Herculean efforts of pastor Jay Reinke, who has turned his church into a makeshift home base for the new arrivals — to the chagrin of the facility's neighbours, who are skeptical about the men's scruffy appearance and possible criminal backgrounds, and the open hostility of the town newspaper, which wages war on Reinke's new congregation by publishing a list of former sex offenders harboured in the church as well as in the pastor's own home. (filmfreakcentral.net)