One quote sums up Rutgers' loss in last night's Orlando Bowl

“Gary is our starting quarterback. He is the guy that has earned the job and earned the right to be in the game, and certainly nothing I saw from him made me feel like I should make any change.” -- Rutgers Coach Kyle Flood on Quarterback Gary Nova

Was Kyle Flood watching a different game? Gary Nova looked scared, was throwing off his back foot all night, and should have thrown six interceptions rather than one -- if the Virginia Tech defensive backs had any hands.

Wasn't Kyle Flood on the sideline during last year's Pinstripe Bowl during which Greg Schiano's switch to Chas Dodd helped lead to a victory over Iowa State? (I would have loved to have heard Greg Schiano's thoughts as he watched from his box in the Citrus Bowl last night.)

I feel very sorry for a defense full of seniors who played a brilliant game against Virginia Tech, scoring a touchdown, holding the Hokies scoreless for three quarters (until a Nova interception set up the first score in the fourth), and keeping them out of the endzone in OT when the Hokies had a first down at the three. Khaseem Greene and crew are a great defense who deserved just a little bit of support on the other side of the ball.

It's officially "The Orlando Bowl" in the BeatVisitor dot com style guide

I'm under no contractual obligation to mention the corporate sponsors of bowl games (or the people putting their corporate name on Rutgers Stadium), so in all future posts about Friday's game, I will use the words "Orlando Bowl" or "The Orlando Bowl", because to call this Friday's game against Virginia Tech the Blockbuster-CarQuest-MicronPC-VisitFlorida-Mazda-ChampsSports-RussellAthletic Bowl is simply too depressing.





Thank God we played in the St. Petersburg Bowl before Mr. Beef O'Brady got his hands on it.

Keep Calm and Chop Virginia Tech

Here it is, the last poster of the 2012 Rutgers football season in honor of the Scarlet Knights' bowl game in Orlando against the Virginia Tech Hokies on December 28th:

You can get an original image at
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-vatech/

Keep Calm and Chop Louisville

It would have been great if Rutgers and Louisville had entered this Thursday's game both 11-0 and highly ranked. It still would have been wonderful if they both went into the game 10-1.  With both of them losing today, there may be a possibility that they will both drop out of their top 25 BCS rankings, but the stakes are exactly the same between these two 9-2 teams as they would have been if they had both been 11-0.
If Rutgers wins, we'll be the sole Big East Champions and going to a BCS game. If Louisville wins, there will be a 3- or 4-way tie of 2-loss teams, including Rutgers, sharing the title, but Louisville will almost certainly go to the BCS game.

Get you own original image or pdf at
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-louisville-2/

Use the #ChopLouisville hashtag this week if you're on Twitter.

Time for Rutgers to go 1-0 again this week.

Quite the scary mascot.

The Rutgers-Pittsburgh game at Ketchup Stadium is starting on ESPN 2 right now, and I'm tweeting with @BeatVisitor over on Twitter.

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Halftime Update: Pittsburgh is looking like the team that was winning decisively against #1 Notre Dame a few weeks ago (before ultimately losing on a chip-shot field goal in overtime).  It's 21-0 Pitt at the half and Rutgers only has a handful of offensive yards on atrociously conservative play calling (PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT CONSERVATISM IS ALWAYS WRONG AND EVIL!). This is a bigger hole than the one that the Scarlet Knights found themselves in after sleepwalking through the first half against Temple before exploding in the third quarter. I'm hoping that Dave Brock is getting fired at halftime and replaced at Offensive Coordinator with a kid who plays Madden aggressively.
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Final Score: Pittsburgh 27- Rutgers 6, and it wasn't that close.
It still all comes down to next Thursday against Louisville in Piscataway, just like we knew it always would.
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Further Update: UConn beat Louisville in triple overtime a minute ago, so Rutgers clinches at least a share of the Big East title.  If they lose to the Cards they could end in a four-way tie of two-loss teams (Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse, and Cincinnati), but if they win on Thursday, they will own the title and a trip to the Orange Bowl outright. 

The Updated BCS Map for 18 November 2012

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights (9-1, 5-0) are still the only team from the Northeast among the 25 colleges in the BCS rankings announced tonight. Ohio has gained color once again with the Kent State Golden Flashes moving into the BCS picture at number 23.

Geographical Distribution of the 25 ranked BCS football teams on 11/18/12.

Rutgers at 18 in the BCS Standings

As shown one minute ago on ESPN:

As seen on TV, 18 November 2012.

Keep Calm and Chop Pitt

The Scarlet Knight players and coaches need to keep only one thing on their minds this week, going one and oh against the Pitt Panthers, who may be the most unpredictably dangerous team around, looking hapless one week and dominating (though somehow losing to) the Number One Fighting Irish the next. 

Rutgers needs to expect to see the latter at a half-empty Ketchup Stadium in Pittsburgh at noon on Saturday. All thoughts of the Louisville matchup and  BCS Bowls and Big Ten invitations need to be erased.  All that matters this week is the need to Chop Pitt.  Here's your poster:

Original poster may be downloaded at
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-pitt/

Keep Calm and Chop Cincy

Don't tell the players how big tomorrow's game at Nippert Stadium is -- that a win keeps the Scarlet Knights (8-1, 4-0) all alone in first place in the Big East and a loss creates a three-way tie between the Bearcats, Cardinals, and R Team.
Don't let them know.
Tell them to keep calm and try to go 1 and 0 again this week.

Get your copy of the poster from

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

The Updated BCS Map as of November 12

The Northeastern United States still has only one representative in this week's updated map of the 25 teams included in BCS rankings of November 12, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights:

Geographic distribution of 25 BCS-ranked teams on November 12, 2012.

The Northeast Again Has a Representative on the BCS Map

Rutgers has again brought the Northeast back onto the BCS map this week, without running a single play.

Geographic Representation of the 25 ranked BCS teams, 4 November 2012.

Idaho, West Virginia, and Arizona dropped off the map this week, replaced by New Jersey, Illinois (Northwestern), and Ohio (Toledo is the third representative from this battleground state to rise onto the BCS rankings in 2012, after Cincinnati and Ohio).

Rutgers in the Polls

On this off week, The 7-1 Scarlet Knights (4-0 Big East) rose back up to 20 in the Coaches Poll and 24 in the AP Poll.

It's also interesting to see that the 8-1 Kent State Golden Flashes (5-0 MAC), the one team to beat the Scarlet Knights, won again and are very close to being ranked in both polls themselves.

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.

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.

"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!