"... this boardwalk life for me is through ..."

Could the namers of hurricanes have picked a more appropriate name than "Sandy" for a hurricane that seems to be aimed directly at the boardwalks of New Jersey?

Stay safe New Jersey!!

This may be the last BCS map I post on BeatVisitor dot com

With the departure of schools from New Jersey and Ohio and the addition of more schools from Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Arizona, all is once again well with the college football world.

There may not be any more representatives from the Northeast threatening the football world's traditional southern and western tilt this year.

You can check out my entries from October 14 and October 21 to see how the BCS top 25 has changed this year.

The Wrong Way Kent State Video

This may be the most (in)famous video of the Kent State Golden Flashes in 2012.

Rutgers shouldn't count on getting this kind of help from next Saturday's visitors, but it's still fun to watch a player run more than 50 yards in the wrong direction:

The Updated BCS Map

There have been some minor geographic adjustments in the top 25 BCS rankings this week. Texas lost one of its teams, Iowa lost its sole representative on the list and Wisconsin and Michigan have entered the map (Ohio lost one, but gained another.)

The Northeast is still represented in the BCS rankings by only a single team, the #15 Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

Homeostasis in the BCS

The BCS rankings are being announced on ESPN as I write this, but only one number counts, and it hasn't changed from last week.

Rutgers is still #15:

BCS Standings as televised on ESPN 10/21/2012

Chop Kent Week Begins

The eighteen hours that Kyle Flood gives the Scarlet Knights to celebrate a win is complete, so we are now officially into preparation for the Kent State Golden Flashes. Previously unbeaten Cincinnati's loss yesterday to the Toledo Rockets show how dangerous is for a Big East team to overlook a one-loss MAC team.  We hope that that 7-0 Knights can keep their intensity and focus on being 1-0 each week to prepare for 6-1 Kent State.
Here's our little propaganda contribution to that effort:

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-kent/

You can get your own original pdf or png image by clicking on http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-kent/ .  And remember, if you tweet, to use the #ChopKent hashtag this week.  #ChopTemple was trending during yesterday's 35-10 win.

Beat Temple!

A Scarlet Knights fan at the Rutgers Temple game
in the open-ended Rutgers Stadium on Halloween 1998.

In ten minutes I'll be over on Twitter at @BeatVisitor and watching this revived rivalry between the Cherry and White Temple Owls and the Scarlet and Black Rutgers Scarlet Knights on SNY.

Go Knights!

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Halftime Update: A very sloppy first half by the Scarlet Knights with penalties, dropped passes, and two turnovers. The Temple Owls are up by 10-0.
Rutgers can't rely on 3rd-quarter magic every week if they intend to stay undefeated.

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Final Update: With a final score of 35-10 and a complete domination of the second half offensively and defensively (Nova touchdown passes to Wright, Jamison, Harrison, and Jefferson, a fumble return by Greene and even a blocked punt thrown in for a little special team balance), Rutgers' #15 BCS ranking probably won't suffer any damage.

The Scarlet Knight Life for Temple Week

I sense an opening for the Knight who rides the horse and has a sword made from real steel!

Quote of the Day

“We don’t need the rowdy pep talks to get us going. He tells us exactly what he wants us to do, and we go out and do it. He tells us the visions that he sees for us before the game, and we go out and do it" 

-- Rutgers Linebacker Khaseem Greene on Coach Kyle Flood

"Beat Visitor" makes another surprising appearance

Here's the first paragraph of an article appearing in Grantland today titled "Don't Look Now -- Rutgers is 6-0":

"I don't know who these two guys were, if they pictured themselves as historical reenactors or professional ironists, but they felt to me like fitting ambassadors for a college football program still trafficking on a 50-man melee with Princeton that took place in 1869. They were sitting along the rail in a corner of the end zone that could generously be described as "semi-vacant," and one of them appeared to be wearing a leather helmet, and together they were holding up a handwritten sign that read, 'BEAT VISITOR.'"

There's even a link to an Instagram image of the sign that's much clearer and closer than the one that I took from long distance at Saturday's Syracuse game.

See the white box above the R in the corner.

The article by Michael Weinreb after that first paragraph rehashes a lot of the old anti-bigtime-Rutgers-football arguments that we've all heard -- and been having -- for the past thirty years, but it's good to see the Beat Visitor "brand" getting another plug, even if it is being misunderstood by an outsider (Why can't one be an "historical reenactor", "professional ironist," and a simple bleeding-scarlet Rutgers fan at the same time? Or none of the above?). Any sign at a sporting event that elicits any thought at all is better than the normal arrangements of words beginning with large capital letters "E", "S", "P", and "N" designed to attract the network television cameras for ten seconds.

Carry On and Chop Temple (again, now with a more appropriate Queens College 1766 crown)

You can download an original image or pdf or make your own poster here, using the Keep Calm-O-Matic: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-temple-2/

Keep Calm and Chop Temple

You can download your own version (or make your own variations) here: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-temple/

The BCS Map at a Glance

Excuse the amateur Etch-a-Sketchy graphics, but I thought it might be interesting to see the density of all 25 BCS-ranked schools represented geographically. It's easy to see at one glance how strong the tilt towards the South and West:

The 25 BCS teams plotted on a map of the United States
(I'll add Alaska and Hawai'i when one of their schools is ranked).

Not to put more pressure on our #15 Scarlet Knights, but they are not only playing for the honor of Dear Old Rutgers, or the Garden State, or the New York Metropolitan Area. The Knights are THE team carrying the hopes of the Northeast in 2012.

Welcome the Owls to the Beat Visitor Sidebar

I know that I've been very remiss in cleaning up my sidebar links, doing little more than relegating a multitude of West Virginia football blogs to the dustbin of Big East history last season (should I delete our friends from Syracuse now, or wait until the end of the season?).

I know there must still be links that are outdated or blogs that are moribund (but, as Beat Visitor has shown you in the past, rumors of blog death can sometimes be greatly exaggerated). I'm putting off that major overhaul, but there was one glaring omission that needed to be rectified immediately. So, as we enter Owl Week (known as #ChopTemple week on Twitter), I have added Temple Football Forever to the list of Big East links to your right (unless, of course, you're reading this on a mobile device). I've also added the Philadelphia Inquirer Temple blog.

Welcome.

The Initial BCS Standings Were Just Announced

Just announced on ESPN a few minutes ago, the undefeated Rutgers Scarlet Knights are the highest-ranked Big East team in the initial BCS rankings at number 15, higher than their AP (19) and USA Today (17) rankings announced earlier today.

Kudos for Khaseem Greene's Role in Yesterday's Syracuse Win

Here's a photo of Khaseem Greene being awarded his helmet sticker on ESPN for his 14-tackle, 1.5-sack, 3-forced fumble, and 1-interception performance yesterday in Piscataway.

In addition to the gaudy statistics of yesterday's Syracuse game, what I find most amazing about watching Khaseem Greene on the field is the strength and textbook form of his tackles. Runners do NOT move or fall forward once they are in his grasp.

In addition to his helmet sticker from Lou Holtz et al., he is also the Walter Camp Defensive Player of the Week, and there will be more well-deserved Conference honors to come.

~~~~~~~~~~
Update 10/15: Khaseem Greene has been named the mid-season "Defensive Player of the Year" in the Big East by CBSSports.com (with Coach honors going to Kyle Flood and "Best Game" honors going to Rutgers-Arkansas).

Another 10/15 Update: It's not a surprise, but it's now official that Khaseem Greene has also been named Defensive Player of the Week by the Big East and in ESPN.com's Big East Blog.

One More 10/15 Update: Athlon Sports has also picked Greene as Big East "Defensive Player of the Year" at the halfway point (with Coach Flood again receiving coaching honors, R.J. Dill being named "Newcomer of the Year," and Gary Nova the "Midseason Surprise").

A 10/16 Update: The weekly Chuck Bednarik Award from the Maxwell Football Club for the defensive player of the week has also been handed to Khaseem.

Another 10/16 Update: Khaseem has been named the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week by the Football Writers Association of America.

"Beat Visitor" was in R House today

At the 23-15 victory over Syracuse at Rutgers Stadium this afternoon, I noticed the sign in the following picture.
All I had was my iPhone camera, so you can't read the letters in the square white box above the large block R in the corner near the student section, but it reads "BEAT VISITOR":

The extra point being attempted in this photo was not successful.

It wasn't me holding up the Beat Visitor sign (though more than one person on Twitter asked if it was). If it was you, let me know in the comments below, or at @BeatVisitor.

Six and Oh feels great, as does beating Syracuse in this last of many meetings since 1914.  I had so much fun at R House this afternoon, that I'm watching the game again on SNY Encore now.

Go Knights!

"It Just Got Real..." The Scarlet Knight Life: Syracuse Week Video

What's most amazing to me about this video of the Scarlet Knight mascot in the Brower Commons enforcing his own Syracuse-week regulations -- even against Tim Pernetti -- is that the Commons looks the same here as it did in the seventies when I was eating there on a regular basis:

It's nature's way of telling you...

When I find the Scarlet and the Orange lining up against each other in my backyard, I know that it's finally really college football season!

Near Woodstock, New York, October 9, 2012

See you Saturday in Piscataway.  I just checked ScarletKnights.com and some tickets are still available to see the 5-0 Scarlet Knights take on their rivals from Syracuse.

Perfect Football Weather

The forecast for this Saturday in Piscataway is (according to Weather.com) sunny and 56 degrees with 0% chance of precipitation.  If that isn't the perfect weather to watch a football game on an October afternoon, I don't know what is.

So why are there still some tickets available at ScarletKnights.com for the game between the 5-0 Rutgers Scarlet Knights (19/20) and the Syracuse Orange?

If I can drive down early from Exit 19 on the NY Thruway and my son can come down from Exit 25 (a location more Orange than Scarlet) to root for the Knights, then no RU fan in the State of New Jersey has any excuse to not be in a seat at R House by noon on Saturday for the match between these two schools competing for Big Apple bragging rights.

(And the students should remember to set their alarm clocks to wake up before 2 in the afternoon.)