Cannon Fodder

Here's the random literary reference of the day to Rutgers football (in the 1920's) from the new book of short stories from the late John Updike; the book is My Father's Tears, the story is "The Laughter of the Gods", and the quote's from pages 80-81:

His father had come to college on a football scholarship [...] Photographs survived, of him crouching purposefully in the unpadded leather helmet of the time. Under the folded sweater there was a game program that included Agricola's schedule; the team had played, amazingly, Cornell and Columbia and Rutgers. The little college had been overmatched -- cannon fodder.

Agricola is a fictional Pennsylvania Lutheran college, but maybe in 80 or 90 years the descendants of some plucky players from Texas Southern or Florida International will be making the same discovery that grandpa had once, amazingly, faced the mighty Scarlet Knights.